The World Economic Forum, a Geneva-based nonprofit focused on entrepreneurship in the global public interest, has recognized 61 early-stage companies as Technology Pioneers for their design, development and deployment of potentially world-changing innovations and technologies. Of the 61, only one is a legal technology company.

That one is Casetext, the legal research company founded in 2013 that has been a key player in pioneering the use of artificial intelligence to enhance legal research. (See, for example, my recent post: Casetext Just Made Legal Research A Whole Lot Smarter.)

The Forum’s description of Casetext says:

Casetext provides free, unlimited access to the law and charges for access to premium technologies that attorneys can use to make their research more thorough and more efficient. It is the novel application of artificial intelligence (AI) to the law that allows attorneys to use the context of what they are working on to jumpstart their research.

The Forum launched its Technology Pioneer program in 2000. Each year, it recognizes a limited number of companies and incorporates them into its initiatives, activities and events. Companies selected in the past include: Airbnb, Google, Kickstarter, Mozilla, Scribd, Spotify, Twitter and Wikimedia.

The newly selected companies will be invited to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2018 in Tianjin, People’s Republic of China, in September, and some will also participate in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2019 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, in January.

The Forum last selected a legal technology company as a Technology Pioneer in 2016, when its list included FiscalNote, a platform for access to legislative and regulatory data.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.