In a recent post at Above the Law, I observed that two companies, Clio and Rocket Matter, literally invented the now-booming field of cloud-based law practice management. Not only that, but in popularizing cloud-based practice management, they helped pave the way for lawyers’ much broader use of the cloud.

I also noted…

Hard to believe, but Sunday will be the 15th birthday of this blog. I launched it on Nov. 19, 2002. Here was my first post. Who’d a thunk I’d still be doing this 15 years later.

This is a good occasion to thank all of the readers who follow this blog, at…

A new virtual legal assistant, LARA, uses artificial intelligence and millions of data points to help consumers find legal help and get answers to legal questions.

Developed by Legal.io, a company that builds attorney referral networks for legal organizations, the purpose of LARA is to use data to help clients find…

Soon to be released is the 2017 State of U.S. Small Law Firms, a survey conducted by Thomson Reuters of more than 300 law firms ranging in size from solo to 29 lawyers. I have been given an exclusive preview of the survey, and I write about it for my column this week at

From left around table: Erika Nash, LawX director Kimball Parker, Cami Schiel, Ryan Lewis, Tayler Tanner, Nick Hafen, John Iler, Alan Hickey (partly visible), Brock Foley and George Simons. Far right is industrial design professor Bryan Howell.

Last summer, I reported on plans for LawX, a legal design lab that…

The latest research shows lawyer productivity had dropped 9% in the last decade. Find out how cloud computing for lawyers can help lawyers make up the loss and give clients better value.

What questions do you have for vendors of legal research, practice management and other technologies and services? I would appreciate your suggestions for a series of vendor panels I will be moderating this week.

Later this week, I’ll be at the Jump-Start Your Law Practice conference in Indianapolis, where I will be moderating a…

As it continues to expand its legal analytics into new practice areas, Lex Machina is today announcing the addition of analytics for federal product liability litigation. The new module is the largest expansion of the platform to date, it says, encompassing nearly 500,000 cases pending since 2009, including 158,000 open cases.

Since launching with its initial focus…

I’ve written any number of posts about the duty of technology competence under ABA Model Rule 1.1, Comment 8, and I’ve been tracking its adoption by the states. But one aspect of this duty that does not get as much attention is how lawyers can get and remain technologically competent.

There have been several…

NextChapter, the cloud-based bankruptcy platform for lawyers, has launched a new product, an online bankruptcy questionnaire and debtor portal called MyChapter.

The portal allows a bankruptcy client to input all of his or her personal and financial information in advance of meeting with the attorney. The attorney can then review and…

Dashboard shows details of a matter

In September, I reported that practice management provider Clio, at its annual Clio Cloud Conference, had unveiled “the new Clio experience” — a top-to-bottom re-engineering and redesign of its practice management platform, which it dubbed Project Apollo, after the Greek god of healing…

Tim Baran, chief marketing officer at Good2BSocial, a digital marketing agency serving the legal industry, recently hosted me as a guest on his legal marketing podcast. Our discussion ranges over legal technology, blogging and social media.

You can listen to it via the Good2BSocial blog or using the embedded player above.…