CollBox, a company that helps law firms get paid more quickly, won the 10th annual Startup Alley pitch competition at ABA Techshow last week in Chicago.

Second place went to Candle AI, an email assistant that helps small and mid-sized law firms eliminate email overload. The third-place winner was Lawdify, an autonomous AI agent for disputes and claims assessment.

(Pictured above, to the right of me are Matt Darner, cofounder of CollBox, Eliza Jiang, CEO and cofounder of Lawdify, and Maximiliano Godoy Skorin, cofounder and CTO of Lawdify.)

The pitch competition is the opening event of Techshow, the American Bar Association’s annual legal technology conference. Fifteen legal tech startups competed, with the winner selected by a vote of the live audience.

Those 15 were selected through a multi-step process of whittling down the total pool of applicants, leading to the event in Chicago where they each had three minutes to present their pitches.

Congratulations to this year’s winners — and to everyone who participated. And a big thanks to Clio for sponsoring all 10 years of the pitch competition.

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.