Say you are reading an article online about contract lifecycle management and want to know what companies offer products for that. A new extension for the Chrome browser puts the answer a click away.
With the new Legalpioneer Chrome extension installed, highlight a word or phrase on any web page to search and explore a database of more than 5,500 worldwide technology businesses serving legal professionals and the law.
The extension searches Legalpioneer.org, a non-profit site launched in 2016 that provides a directory of technology businesses and ideas impacting the legal space across the globe. It includes more than 5,500 profiles covering more than 800 locations, with more being added each day.
That search for contract lifecycle management takes me to a results page in Legalpioneer listing relevant companies. If I click the “read more” button, I come to a brief description of the company with a link to its website and another to explore the company through a Google search.
Raymond Blijd, the Amsterdam-based cofounder of Legalpioneer, told me that this link to explore on Google is his economical way of keeping the company information current. He retains companies in the directory even if they go out of business, believing it remains useful to know of them and about what happened to them.
Legalpioneer also allows searches by location, although not from the Chrome extension. I can see, for example, a map of all law-related companies in Boston and the surrounding area.
While Legalpioneer operates as a non-profit, it is affiliated with the for-profit company that Blijd founded, Legalcomplex.com, and data collected through Legalpioneer is used to feed the products sold by Legalcomplex.com.
Those products include Spark, a dashboard that provides in-depth data on venture capital investments and mergers and acquisition involving legal and regulatory technology companies, and Grow, an investor dashboard with data on more than 8,700 investors investing in more than 4,200 companies.
Blijd founded Legalcomplex and cofounded Legalpioneer after leaving his job at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory, where he was manager of online innovation.
Blijd said that he is intentionally broad in deciding which companies to include on Legalpioneer. “What we define as legal tech is not only the tech that serves lawyers, but also tech that serves the law.”
Submit A Company, Win A Jacket
In celebration of its fifth year of operation, Legalpioneer is sponsoring a give-away to encourage the submission of more start-ups for its directory.
Anyone who submits a unique startup, not already listed, will be entered in a drawing for a Legalpioneer college jacket (pictured).
Guidelines for submitting a company can be found in the Legalpioneer FAQ.
