What Are The Most Innovative Startups In The Legal Space?
A few years ago this question would have been easier to answer. In 2011 Docracy was a TechCrunch Hackathon Winner and I was instantly a fan. Until then, very few legal startups were headlining in the wider tech press. So for me, that was a tipping point.
A legal startup had broken through and resonated with the startup elite.
We’ve now seen Y Combinator take on Clerky, Lawdingo, Casetext, SimpleLegal and Wevorce. In the UK, Seedcamp have backed Apperio and Forward Partners just closed a seed round with Lexoo (where I work). I’m sure there are others I’ve missed, particularly in Europe and Asia.
If you follow the money trail, stopping short of the heavyweights like LegalZoom, Avvo and Rocket Lawyer, some of the bigger raises ($5M+) have been:
There’s a fair share of ‘smart money’ in that sample, so if you’re looking for innovation it’s perhaps not a bad place to start.
But of course that’s just the tip of the iceberg, and what lies beneath is an ever-growing base of startups looking to disrupt, reinvent and hack the BigLaw (even NewLaw) institutions. AngelList has long boasted 500+ legal startups in its ranks, but in reality we’re not quite there. At Law Hackers, it’s 339 and counting… (I’m way behind posting them all)
If I can highlight one recent trend, I’d have to say litigation crowd funding is rather hot right now. Here, LexShares gets my early vote. Snapping at its heels are CrowdLaw, Legal Funding Central, CrowdDefend, LitigationFunding, and casefunder. By the time I stop writing this post, I’m sure another would’ve released a private beta.
Hmm, just realised LegalSwarm has gone dormant, make that 338.
To pick a favourite, I’d go with Shake. I’ve got a few reasons for that pick, and happy to outline them if anyone’s interested — just ask me ☺
Finally, I’ve mentioned several groupings/startups in this post and I do want them to be exhaustive — so please chime in with your extras so we can fill the gaps/fix mistakes.
