At the conclusion of Legaltech West Coast this week, Legaltech News (formerly Law Technology News) announced the winners of its 2015 Innovation Awards. The awards recognize law departments, law firms and vendors for outstanding achievement in legal technology.
Striking a Blow Against Legalese: Adobe's Legal Department Open Sources Its Plain-English Style Guide
Adobe’s legal department is striking a blow against legalese today. It is releasing to the legal community at large the style guide it developed to help its own inhouse staff write legal documents in plain English and avoid legalese.
Adobe is releasing The Adobe Legal Department…
Latest 'Fastcase 50' Awards Honor Legal Innovators
Fastcase today announced the recipients of its 2015 Fastcase 50 awards. The awards recognize “50 of the smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders in the law.”
This is the fifth year of these awards. Previous winners can be seen for 2011, 2012, 2013, and…
Speaking on Crowdsourced Legal Research at AALL Next Week
The American Association of Law Libraries is holding its 108th annual meeting and conference July 18-21 in Philadelphia. On Monday, July 20, I will be giving the presentation, Plays Well with Others: How Collaboration and Crowdsourcing are Changing Legal Research.
The one-hour program is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. in…
On-Sale Date and New Alliance Announced For New .Law Top-Level Domain
There is news today about the new “.law” generic top-level domain. At Legaltech West Coast, Minds + Machines — the company with the exclusive license to operate the .law gTLD — made two announcements:…
82% of Am Law 200 Firms Have Blogs, Including 18 of Top 25, Survey Says
Among the Am Law 200 law firms, 163, or 82 percent, now have blogs. And it is not just one blog. All but 27 of them have multiple blogs and one firm, Fox Rothschild, has 39.
These are among the findings of the 2015 Am Law 200 Blog Benchmark Report, a report on large…
Exclusive First Look: All New Version of Fastcase Out Today in Beta
The legal research service Fastcase is today unveiling a complete overhaul of its platform, its first entirely new version since 2003. The new version, called Fastcase 7, promises greater speed, expanded search, more intuitive functionality, and a more readable interface.
“We want to balance…
Lawyer Can't Unmask Anonymous Critic on Avvo, Court Rules
A Florida lawyer has lost her bid in a defamation action to force the legal directory site Avvo to reveal the identify of an anonymous poster who wrote a negative review of her.
The Washington state Court of Appeals ruled against the lawyer, Deborah Thomson of
Priori Legal Aims To Be A Different Kind of Lawyer-Client Matching Site
Sometimes, algorithms work better when they’re combined with a human touch. That is the idea behind Priori Legal, a “curated marketplace” that strives to connect business owners with vetted lawyers at transparent prices. Founded by two Yale Law graduates, Priori screens every lawyer it admits to its roster and requires the lawyers…
Intake123 Makes It Easy to Create and Manage Client-Intake Forms
Sometimes in legal technology, when it rains, it pours. In April, I wrote here about Rocket Matter Intake, the new service from Rocket Matter that allows law firms to post client-intake forms on their websites that integrate directly with its practice management platform. A…
The Supreme Court Database Behind Today's New York Times Analysis
The New York Times today has a fascinating article documenting The Roberts Court’s Surprising Move Leftward. Reporters Alicia Parlapiano, Adam Liptak and Jeremy Bowers analyze the court’s decisions from 1946 to the present to conclude that this term could be among the court’s most liberal…
Thomson Reuters Elite Sets Sights on Cloud and Customer Service
At its worldwide Vantage 2015 user conference last week in Las Vegas, Thomson Reuters Elite announced an anticipated 2017 move to the cloud for its flagship product, Elite 3E, and a new emphasis on building a “customer-centric” organization.
Elite is a suite…