LawNext

A lawyer, economist and scholar, Gillian K. Hadfield has devoted much of her career to studying how legal systems can be improved to ensure they meet the needs of the people they are meant to serve. In her book, Rules for a Flat World: Why Humans Invented Law and How to Reinvent…

This week on LawNext, we get to reveal a project that could change the face of contracting for small businesses worldwide. Pulse — backed by LegalZoom — is a new initiative to deliver better contracts to small businesses. And to help develop it, Pulse has hired widely known contract-drafting specialist Ken Adams, author of the…

A tremor rolled through the legal industry recently when Thomson Reuters announced that it had sold its managed services business, Pangea3, to global Big Four professional services firm Ernst & Young, a sign of Ernst & Young’s increasing expansion into legal services.

On the latest episode of LawNext, I speak with…

“Our mission is to make discovery instant and accessible for everyone,” says Andy Wilson, cofounder and CEO of the e-discovery technology company Logikcull. “We believe that quick and affordable access to discovery ‒ the search for truth ‒ is a fundamental right to every citizen of Earth.”

Wilson and CTO Sheng…

Silicon Valley-backed Atrium is a different kind of law firm — a dual entity that is part law practice and part legal technology company. The goal is to provide corporate clients with a more efficient and transparent alternative to traditional large firms, with Atrium’s lawyers focusing exclusively on practicing law, while a second entity, Atrium…

Felicity Conrad is on a mission to help expand pro bono legal services. The legal technology company she cofounded, Paladin, helps corporations, law firms, law schools and legal service organizations streamline their pro bono programs, with the greater goal of helping them serve more clients in need and help close the gap in access…

Not all law firms are equal. In fact, some of them are drastically different from one another. As technology becomes even more pervasive in the legal industry, the industry is changing and reacting.

This week on LawNext, I step aside from hosting duties and present a special live panel discussion from UC Hastings’ legal…



Everlaw is an e-discovery company that has attracted the interest of some big-name Silicon Valley venture capital firms, raising nearly $35 million in the last three years. It was the first legal technology company to receive an investment from Andreessen Horowitz, a firm known…

In February, Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini announced the launch of SixFifty, a software subsidiary that will develop automated tools designed to make legal processes more efficient and affordable for individuals, small businesses and emerging companies. Named president of SixFifty was Kimball Dean Parker, the lawyer who helped develop the innovative LawX design lab…



Gordon Smith, dean of the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, once said: “I want BYU to be known as, if not the most innovative law school in the country, then one of the most innovative law schools in the country.”…

Last week, ABA TECHSHOW presented the third annual Startup Pitch Competition, which I was thrilled to moderate and help organize. Fifteen legal technology startups presented three-minute pitches before a live audience of TECHSHOW attendees, who then voted for their favorite.

In this special edition of LawNext, we partner with the Legal Talk Network to present a recording…

In January, the world’s largest law firm, Baker McKenzie, announced that it had hired two leading thinkers on legal innovation, Jae Um and D. Casey Flaherty, to help the firm “enhance and reimagine the delivery of legal services to global clients.” They join a team led by David Cambria, who last year left Fortune 50…