Companies

In a post here May 19, LegalZoom Suffers Setback in North Carolina, I wrote about recent legal developments in South Carolina and North Carolina involving claims that LegalZoom is engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. Towards the end of that post, I wrote:

Meanwhile, LegalZoom

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Recent years have brought an influx of new practice, case and matter management systems, primarily in the cloud. With so much attention paid to these newcomers, it is easy to overlook the venerable old-timers – the companies that have been at this a long time and, because of that, have learned a thing or two about what lawyers want. One such platform is LawBase, a case and matter management system first launched in 1981 by Synaptec Software Inc. Although the company is old, the software is not, says its CEO Philip Homburger. "We adapt and stay up with…

[Correction: This post erroneously described an Alabama lawsuit against LegalZoom as active when, in fact, it had been dismissed in January 2014. See this post for a full explanation.] When LegalZoom issued a press release last month announcing that the South Carolina Supreme Court had issued a determination that the company is not engaged in the unauthorized practice of law in that state, the news was widely reported by news media and blogs. However, just two weeks later in neighboring North Carolina, a Superior Court judge handed the State Bar a partial victory…

Here is an interesting factoid for you: David Lat, editor of the blog Above the Law, is credited with coining three of the 7,500 new terms in the latest edition of Black’s Law Dictionary.

Due out Friday in its 10th edition from Thomson Reuters,…

It’s a good time to be a legal startup, it seems. Just three weeks ago, we reported here that Clio, the cloud-based practice management platform, had raised $20 million in financing. Now comes news that the lawyer directory site Avvo has closed $37.5 million in financing.

This latest round of…

A year ago, I wrote here about Orion, the practice-management system designed for mid-sized law firms, and its app for iPad and iPhone, iOrion. At LegalTech New York in February, Orion announcing the forthcoming release of version 2.0 of its…

At LegalTech in New York this week, Thomson Reuters will be showing a new addition to WestlawNext — the PeopleMap public records service. Although PeopleMap, itself, is not new, its integration into WestlawNext is new. and with that integration comes new visualization tools that now enable users to map…

Transporter, a device that lets lawyers set up their own private cloud for secure file storage, has been named as the year’s top new product for lawyers in TechnoLawyer’s listing of the top 25 new products and…

Here is a surprising story that I missed earlier this week while I was off at a conference: Thomson Reuters Legal is getting a new president. Out goes Mike Suchsland, president since 2011. In comes Susan Taylor Martin, currently the managing director of Thomson Reuters Legal in the UK and Ireland.

Susan Taylor…

Here are a few items from the week that are worthy of note:

Elvis law. The ABA has published The Little Book of Elvis Law. The King’s legacy inspired not only generations of fans, but also generations of litigation. This book reports on some of those…

Last July, I reported here that Box, the file-sharing and collaboration platform, was making a ramped-up push into the legal industry. Today, Box followed up on that news in a big way, announcing new integrations with 22 mobile and web legal platforms,…

I am thrilled to announce my new monthly column for the ABA Journal, “Ambrogi on Tech.” The first installment is now available, a review of the Thomson Reuters practice-management platform Firm Central: Thomson Reuters’ cloud platform Firm Central emphasizes integration—at a cost.

Are there topics you’d like to see me…