When I left for vacation 2.5 weeks ago, I jokingly sent out a tweet, “Dear #legaltech world: Please stop making news for two weeks. I’m trying to take some time off.” Unfortunately, the legal tech world did not get my message. The news kept coming, even if I wasn’t here to cover it. So allow me to round up some of what’s happened.
As for France, let me just say it wasn’t my fault, even though I happened to be there. Probably the most-discussed story of the past two weeks was France’s decision to ban judicial analytics. I had been in Paris just two days when Artificial Lawyer reported the news that the French government had banned the publication of statistical information about judges’ decisions. The next day, I tried to meet with the CEO of one of the companies affected by the law, Nicolas Bustamante of Doctrine, but we were unable to fit it in before I was scheduled to leave Paris. Meanwhile, the story took off, reported by a number of news sites and widely discussed on social media. For those of us in the U.S., I agree with the conclusion of Bloomberg Law writer Sam Skolnik that no such ban is likely ever to be seen here — or, for that matter, anywhere else.
On the investment front, in addition to the $50 million raise by Litify that I reported June 7, Los Angeles-based global law company Elevate announced that it had raised $25 million in funding from private equity firm Kayne Partners, bringing its total raise to almost $60 million, and said that it is aiming for a U.K. public stock market listing in 2021. Elevate has made a number of notable acquisitions recently, including of legal AI technology and consultancy LexPredict, contract lifecycle management (CLM) provider
