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• Law firms, corporate counsel, judges, and bar associations have made calls to fight racial injustice following the death of George Floyd and subsequent protests. Firms have committed financial resources to nonprofits and pro bono hours to protesters. Bail funds have raised millions for those arrested at rallies, which has raised questions about the bail system itself. 
• Facial recognition and location data are continuing to raise privacy concerns:
  • Major tech companies have halted the development and sale of facial recognition tools to law enforcement agencies. 
  • Clearview AI, a tools being used to surveil protesters, is facing scrutiny from US lawmakers. The ACLU has filed suit against the company for violating Illinois’ biometric information privacy laws.
  • Citizen, an app providing real-time alerts based on 911 and user-generated information, both provides timely updates to protestors while raising privacy concerns around sharing information users post.
• Podcasts addressed the impact that recent uprisings have had on the practice of law:
  • A. Scott Bolden and Ben Wilson discuss their experiences with systemic racism, and how legal leaders can foster a culture of inclusion and diversity (31 min).
  • Bryan Parker and Jonathan Greenblatt discuss the lessons that the legal world can learn from George Floyd's death (72 min).
  • Lia Dorsey, the President of the Association of Law Firm Diversity Professionals, discusses major firms’ responses to the current moment (25 min).

• New challenges emerge as states re-open:
  • Firms are developing tools to help clients track government reopening procedures. Courts will have their hands full with almost 300 coronavirus-related federal lawsuits (and 2,700 cases overall) filed since the outset of the pandemic. The state of Oklahoma, has launched a pro bono network to fight the backlog.  
  • 🏡 67% of legal professionals want to continue working from home, yet over half want support in being more productive. Employees may inadvertently create security risks by using personal hardware.
• Demand for legal technology grows, but are legal teams ready?
  • 📈 A Wolters Kluwer study reported that 76% of legal professionals believe legal technology will impact their organizations over the three years, but only 28% think their organizations are ready. Over half believe resistance from leadership is the primary barrier to innovation.
  • The same study indicated that, while 51% of in-house teams are increasing tech spend, companies prefer off-the-shelf products to ensure they realize the benefits quickly.
• Government-sponsored legal services initiatives continue:
  • California is exploring a possible regulatory sandbox for new ways to deliver legal services, following Utah’s announcement in April. The UK Ministry of Justice is funding its own sandbox to support legal services innovation. 
  • While innovation continued elsewhere, Washington announced the cancellation of the Licensed Legal Technicians program, which enabled licensed professionals to give legal advice without a lawyer’s supervision.
• Data privacy is of prime importance but oversight remains an issue:
  • A recent study indicated that over 60% of in-house legal departments are concerned with CCPA and GDPR compliance, but only 17% of legal departments have primary oversight of those issues. 
  • 86% of data breaches are financially motivated (yet 15% of global law firms have indicators of compromised networks). 
  • These risks extend to the upcoming US election, where popular online voting tool OmniBallot has serious security flaws.

Fundings:

• Bryter, a no-code decision automation platform, raised $16M in a Series A co-led by Accel and Dawn Capital.
• Ethena, a company focused on sexual harassment training, raised $2M in Seed funding led by GSV.
• Ethyca, software focused on automating consumer data privacy, raised $13.5M from investors including IA Ventures and SciFi VC.
• H4, a document creation and analytics platform, announced $27M in investments (both current and prior) from strategic investors such as Goldman Sachs, Barclays, and Linklaters.
• Intellex, a simple and intuitive knowledge management platform, raised $2.1M led by Quest Ventures.
• LawGeex, an AI-powered contract review platform, raised $20M led by Corner Ventures with participation from Aleph and La Maison. 
• LexCheck, which helps companies accelerate the contract negotiation process, raised $3M led by Kli Capital.
• Lupl, a collaboration platform for legal matters, raised $10M from international law firms such as Cooley, CMS, and Rajah & Tann. 
• Malbek, a contract lifecycle management platform, raised $3M led by Osage Venture Partners.
• Qorus, which provides tools for sales proposal automation, raised $5M led by WestRiver Group. 
• RapidSOS, a tool that provides emergency information securely to first responders, raised $21M led by Transformation Capital.
• SirionLabs, a contract lifecycle and supplier management platform, raised $44M in a Series led by Tiger Global and Avatar Growth Capital.
• States Title, whose technology streamlines the mortgage closing process, raised $123M in a Series C led by Greenspring Associates.

Acquisitions:

• SwervePay, an e-payment vendor, was acquired by local government payment collection software provider Ontario Systems.

Accelerators:

• Allen & Overy’s Fuse accelerator launched its fourth iteration with five legaltech companies and four fintech startups.
• Indian law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas announced that its Prarambh legaltech accelerator graduated its initial class of three startups.

• Northwestern professor Dan Linna speaks about how to evaluate the quality and value of legal services (29 min).
• LawNext chronicles how the NY State Bar partnered with Paladin and Clio to develop a free legal aid website for the state’s unemployed workers (45 min).
• Richard Susskind discussed the opportunities and challenges of moving to online courts (31 min). 
• Digitory Legal’s Catherine Krow speaks about the importance of cost predictability for legal services (41 min). 
• Sterling Miller, the former general counsel at Travelocity, Sabre Corporation and Marketo, speaks about how in-house teams respond to crises (37 min).

• Congrats to Haley Altman for being named Litera’s Global Director of Business Development and Strategy.
• Congrats to Colin Rule for being named CEO of Mediate.com.

• 🚀 Netflix received foreign trademark rights for its show “Space Force” before the actual government organization did. 
• The limits of a two-sided marketplace? Restaurants that increasingly rely on UberEats and Grubhub for business are increasingly unable to pay rising platform fees.
• Facebook is struggling to identify deepfakes and states that they are currently “not a big issue.”

I am an investor at The LegalTech Fund and I enjoy seeing how the law affects everyone, from people fighting a parking ticket to companies completing a merger. Nate's News is my own digest that I use to stay on top of meaningful stories in the world of law.