2014 Legal Startups
Caveats: This list only includes companies operating in the US. It does not include law firms, back office (support, ancillary, lateral), middle office (HR, billing, etc.), or marketing. Leave a comment if I missed any.
Legal Research
Westlaw and LexisNexis have been the names in legal research from the start and even with all of their resources, lawyers and law students have wanted a better way to search legal records. Fastcase was the first to make legal research open and online and continues to run a successful company providing free law on the web and through the mobile app. In the past few years, more competitors have started to pop up focusing on a particular niche within the legal research space.
Big Data
Crowdsourcing
Docket & Brief Retrieval
Lawyer Marketplace
Lawyer matchmaking, lawyer marketplace, lead gen for attorneys… call it what you will; this is not a new concept but there are several new players in the space. Avvo has been leading this market for the past 7 years combining a lawyer marketplace with a Q&A forum and ratings directory. After raising a $37.5M Series D in April of this year, Avvo has plans to expand globally while others in this space are just getting started.
- UpCounsel
- LawKick
- Lawyer Match
- Lawdingo
- Priori Legal
- Lawtrades
- LawGives
- Plainlegal
- Bluetree Legal
- AttorneyFee
- Fair Document
- LawDeeDa
- Jammed Up
- Dealsheet
- RSVP Law
- LawVisors
- LawNearMe.com
- Abe.
- LawStudio
- Arrest SOS (mobile)
- Fixed (mobile)
Practice Management
Just five years after their launch, Clio has raised the stakes by closing on a $17.9M Series C round. Although they are the leading software in the legal practice management space, there are many other options for attorneys to manage their client files.
Case Management for Specific Practice Areas
Each area of law has its own workflow and file management techniques. These startups are taking the idea of practice management software and applying it to a specific practice of law to customize the experience for attorneys.
Depositions
Discovery
Litigation
DIY Legal Forms & Contracts
Legal tech isn’t just for attorneys! There are many solutions for the Average Joe to take care of legal work on his own. Lawyers don’t always agree that this is the most ethical approach but it never stopped LegalZoom. Now to compete with LegalZoom and RocketLawyer are a collection of legal startups offering the ability to assemble your own case.
Web-Based
- RocketLawyer
- WhichDraft
- VentureDocs
- LawDeal
- Contractually
- Clerky
- Docracy
- Peppercorn
- Tapdox (execute signatures)
Mobile
- Shake
- Ticket Filer
- doAgree
- Legítimo (Spanish)
Specific Legal Forms
- iubenda (privacy policy)
- Snapterms (terms of service)
- PactSafe (website legal contracts)
- Traklight (IP strategy)
- AfterSteps (after-life planning)
- everplans (after-life planning)
- AfterIGo (after-life planning)
- Wevorce (divorce)
- Clearpath Immigration (immigration)
- Bridge US (immigration)
- LegalCrunch! (expungements)
Online Dispute Resolution
Document Automation and Assembly
The need for document automation and assembly is essential in every area of law. These startups help attorneys do in-office tasks at a fraction of the time and costs! Throw away those yellow legal pads full of intake notes and start managing your legal content in an easy-to-use app.
- EasyIntake (automating client intake process)
- LegalSifter (document analysis)
- CaseRails (document automation)
- LexSpring (document automation)
- Turner (contracts — Mac only)
- Lexiqual (document collaboration)
- Legal Simplicity (M&A)
- Diligence Engine (M&A)
- ClearAccessIP (IP)
- Filey (file storage)
- NextChapter (bankruptcy)
- TrademarkNow.com
Social and Referral Networks
Attorneys use listservs, forums and groups to connect with one another about their practice, share referrals or get advice on a specific case. These legal startups offer lawyers a private network to stay in touch and help each other grow their practice.
Lawyer-to-Lawyer Outsourcing
More help in the office please! Solos and smalls are growing their business and the best way to minimize overhead and build a profitable law practice is to outsource the busy work. That’s what the team at Curo Legal is doing. They are helping attorneys become more profitable by giving them the resources they need to work as a virtual office and outsource all but the law. Here are a few startups that are providing legal staffing for the modern attorney.
And if you’re a law student or an associate looking for a job, here are a few legal recruiting startups.
Predictive Analytics and Litigation Data Mining
These startups are using big data and legal analytics to help predict the future of the law from judge decisions to patent applications.
Legal Billing
Transparency in legal billing! With these startups, companies can track their legal spend and make sense of their legal bills with no surprises.
Here is the data in spreadsheet form:
