Law firms’ use of APIs — or application programming interfaces — is proliferating, as they access data from external sources for a range of purposes, from building analytics, to gathering intelligence on their clients and competitors, to developing proprietary AI tools, and more.

But with the proliferating use of APIs comes a proliferation of legal data vendors offering APIs. How does a law firm choose from among them? What questions should a firm ask a vendor? What red flags should a firm watch for?

In his article, API Checklist for Law Firms: Choosing the Right Legal Data Vendor, Josh Blandi, CEO and cofounder of court data provider UniCourt, offers a list of 10 considerations a firm should look for when choosing an API vendor.

“The continued expansion of the legal technology ecosystem presents law firms with a growing number of legal data vendors and API solutions to choose from,” Blandi writes. “That leads to a good, but difficult, problem of having to sift between providers to find the right API solution to fit your needs.”

The article appears in the resources library of the LawNext Legal Technology Directory, a directory of technology products for legal professionals.

The resource center is a free library of practical articles written to help legal professionals understand and evaluate legal technology. If you are a legal tech expert or user who would like to pitch an article idea for our resources center, you may do so here.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.