Sponsored briefing: Legal tech – Too much of a good thing?

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Sponsored briefing: Legal tech – Too much of a good thing?

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Neota Logic

Nearly $1bn was invested in legal technology and New Law disruptors in 2018. That was across more than 50 funding rounds and included start-ups through to more established players, according to research from Investec. Venture capital, private equity, non-legal companies and trade buyers are increasingly interested in what they see as a highly-lucrative legal sector.

The frequency and scope of legal tech funding has also jumped markedly: a Thomson Reuters report in mid-2017 put investment into UK legal tech start-ups at just £16m in the previous 18 months. Hundreds of legal tech companies have subsequently popped up. Every law firm is quick to tout its latest innovation or partnership with a technology provider, while some even have incubators where they work with start-ups over several months, honing products. Continue reading “Sponsored briefing: Legal tech – Too much of a good thing?”

The edge of the cliff – Brexit response for worried GCs

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The edge of the cliff – Brexit response for worried GCs

For UK business, 2018 will be dominated by one question: when do we push the button on Brexit? Months of scenario planning have given a sense of the possible outcomes, but there is little confidence that a decision will be taken in full possession of the facts.

‘We are 500 or so days on from the referendum, and it is still not clear what the arrangements between the UK and the EU will be,’ notes Kirsty Cooper, group general counsel (GC) and company secretary at Aviva. ‘As GCs we are being asked to give our best guess, but the scale of the conjecture with Brexit is unusual.’ Continue reading “The edge of the cliff – Brexit response for worried GCs”

The business and human rights debate: The new judges

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With new legislation putting human rights on the business agenda, we teamed up with Herbert Smith Freehills to gather lawyers and experts from a range of industries to debate the key issues

In our recent Insight report on business and human rights (see Soft law, hard sanctions – Human rights laws and the next risk front facing business) – published in September in association with Herbert Smith Freehills – we noted how the arrival of the Modern Slavery Act (MSA) in the UK in 2015 has crystallised the groundswell of awareness of the human rights concerns in business. We heard from in-house human rights experts how the debate over the last 15 years had moved beyond a vague concept to which lip service had been paid to become a bona fide business consideration, combining legal liability with potentially devastating reputational risk.

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Hunting titans – the disputes outlook as watchdogs and claimants target banking giants

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As banks remain in the crosshairs of regulators and claimants, Legal Business teamed up with Stephenson Harwood to seek the views of the in-house banking community on attitudes to disputes and risk.

If you needed confirmation of just how challenging the litigation climate is for many of the world’s banks, then JPMorgan Chase’s results for the third quarter provided it, in all their billion-dollar detail. Announcing a $400m loss for Q3 in October, the bank revealed that it had set aside $23bn for litigation costs arising from a series of regulatory investigations, resulting litigation and economic crisis-related suits.

Continue reading “Hunting titans – the disputes outlook as watchdogs and claimants target banking giants”

Knowledge is power – the future of legal tech

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Effective use of technology and knowledge management tools are higher on a law firm manager’s agenda than ever before. Here we track the key developments that will shape the future of legal tech

For insight into how important the role of the IT specialist is to the modern law firm, just ask Balfour Beatty’s head of group legal Keely Hibbitt. The infrastructure giant made a significant splash in April, when it announced a radical overhaul of its panel arrangements, selecting Pinsent Masons as its sole adviser for all its ‘business as usual’ legal work.

The three-year contract, which will cover all repetitive and predictable legal work that the client faces on a daily basis, is a major coup for the law firm. But while the mandate reflects Pinsents’ ability to offer a single-supplier model effectively, it would have floundered were it not for the work of IT director Colin Smith and his team.

Continue reading “Knowledge is power – the future of legal tech”