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Whereas the previous few years have introduced an abundance of latest and modern authorized tech merchandise to market, the actual fact of the matter is that not each new product will succeed. Inevitably, for no matter cause, some merchandise fail. However one factor for sure is that whereas some merchandise shut down with a whimper, others exit with a bang.
Let’s revisit 5 of probably the most momentous authorized tech fails of the final 10 years.
1. Atrium.
It launched in 2017 to nice fanfare, promising to “revolutionize authorized companies” by its dual-entity mannequin of each a regulation agency and a know-how firm. Its founder, Justin Kan, was a Silicon Valley wunderkind who had beforehand based Twitch after which bought it to Amazon for $970 million. It got here out of the gate with $10 million in funding, after which a 12 months later raised a whopping $65 million extra from among the greatest names in enterprise capital.
When it launched, I questioned in an Above the Law column whether or not it was a case of Clearspire déjà vu, recalling the demise of the strikingly related dual-entity agency Clearspire, which opened in 2010 and shut down 4 years later. However those that neglect the previous are doomed to repeat it, they are saying, and inside three years, Atrium shut down, after first making an attempt to pivot to a special enterprise mannequin. “Issues didn’t work out as deliberate,” Kan wrote on Twitter, “and that’s my accountability.”
2. QuickLegal.
In 2016, authorized tech entrepreneur Derek Bluford was using excessive. Simply 28 years previous, he had received accolades as an entrepreneur, first beginning California Authorized Professionals, an organization that marketed varied authorized companies to each customers and legal professionals, then QuickLegal, a service that supplied on-demand authorized recommendation to customers, after which QuickLegal Follow Administration, a cloud observe administration platform for legal professionals. He had even been chosen to look on the favored ABC tv present Shark Tank, and, after I first wrote about him, he was slated to be a featured speaker at a significant authorized tech convention two weeks later.
However that every one got here crashing down after I reported in 2016 of Bluford’s settlement of a lawsuit charging him with impersonating a lawyer, forging authorized paperwork and fraudulently swindling two shoppers. Following my report, QuickLegal shortly shut down. Later it seemed to be reincarnated in one other related startup known as LawTova. After I wrote about that firm, it too shut down. I then wrote about yet one more startup that had ties to Bluford and QuickLegal, and which additionally then shut down.
In case you suppose that was the tip of Bluford, suppose once more. In 2020, Bluford revealed a e-book during which he claimed to have change into an FBI informant aiding in a political corruption investigation into the previous mayor of Sacramento, Calif., Kevin Johnson, who was additionally a former star with the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. Then, in 2021, he was sentenced to seven years in jail on expenses associated to the fraud and forgeries I’d written about in 2016. (Yow will discover my full sequence of posts about Bluford here.)
3. ROSS Intelligence.
ROSS was forward of its time in striving to make use of synthetic intelligence to empower authorized analysis. It began in 2014 on the College of Toronto as a student-built entrant in a cognitive-computing competitors staged by IBM to develop functions for its Watson pc. It shortly gained momentum and worldwide consideration, drawing main buyers, together with Denton’s NextLaw Labs, and its founders had been invited to take part within the prestigious Y-Combinator startup incubator. In 2017, Forbes named the three founders to its “30 Underneath 30.” In 2019, I visited ROSS’s Toronto analysis and improvement workplace, after which I wrote a lengthy post about what I noticed and discovered, in addition to concerning the firm’s historical past and its potential future.
However the outlook for ROSS modified virtually in a single day when it was sued by Thomson Reuters in 2020 on allegations that it surreptitiously stole content material from Westlaw to construct its personal competing authorized analysis product. Whereas ROSS vehemently denied the allegations, the lawsuit crippled its capacity to lift new financing or discover potential acquisition alternatives. In December 2020, it announced that it was shutting down. But though the corporate is now not working, it continues to combat the lawsuit, with its protection and counterclaims funded by insurance coverage protection. As of this writing, the lawsuit is ongoing.
4. LexisNexis Agency Supervisor.
The 12 months 2008 noticed the launches of the primary two cloud-based regulation observe administration platforms, Clio and Rocket Matter, adopted in 2009 by the launch of MyCase. Within the years that adopted, various related merchandise got here to market, resembling PracticePanther, Zola Suite (now CARET Authorized), and CosmoLex. In 2011, LexisNexis leapt onto this bandwagon with its release of Firm Manager, a web-based observe administration platform designed for smaller regulation companies.
Sadly, the product acquired off to a rocky begin, with main efficiency points, and it had problem gaining traction in what was quick changing into a crowded market. It later went again to the drafting board and rebuilt the product virtually from the bottom up, releasing the retooled model in 2016 as Agency Supervisor 2.0. However by then, the nailing of the coffin could have already got began. By January 2017, LexisNexis mentioned it was discontinuing sales of Firm Manager, and, later that 12 months, it shut it down entirely.
5. Gavelytics.
When the litigation analytics firm Gavelytics shut down in 2022, it was a shock to virtually all people however the founder. The corporate had been seen as one of many leaders within the fast-growing subject of litigation analytics, and since its founding in California in 2017, it had considerably expanded the scope of its product and raised $5.7 million in funding. Thus, it was a dramatic flip of occasions when, on June 29, 2022, founder and CEO Rick Merrill notified clients and staff that the corporate would close its doors the next day.
There’s, nonetheless, a considerably joyful ending to the story of Gavelytics. Six months after it shut down, one other litigation analytics startup, Pre/Dicta, acquired the Gavelytics platform and its gathered court docket information, and introduced on Merrill as a strategic advisor.
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Bob Ambrogi is a lawyer and journalist who has been writing and talking about authorized know-how and innovation for greater than 20 years. He writes the award-winning weblog LawSites, is a columnist for Above the Law, hosts the podcast about authorized innovation, LawNext, and hosts the weekly authorized tech journalists’ roundtable, Legaltech Week. He’s additionally cofounder of the LawNext Legal Technology Directory.
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