With cash flowing freely into legal tech and start-ups scaling, the market is looking increasingly mature. But while bold claims have been made of the disruption start-ups will supposedly trigger in legal, the response from established providers has been a robust acquisition strategy, which could see fledgling companies struggle to compete.
‘Certainly there’s been consolidation and people buying up platforms,’ says Simmons & Simmons innovation and business change director Ben McGuire. ‘Bigger incumbents like Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis are becoming more acquisitive. We’ll likely see more of that from large, existing platforms and fast growers like UnitedLex.’
