Image: Legal Geek 2016
It is only a few days until the law-tech startup community descend on east London’s Brick Lane for the Legal Geek Conference, and it’s shaping up to be the biggest one yet. We are really looking forward to it.
The Legal Geek Conference presents an excellent opportunity for law tech startups to come together, and with the legal community, to drive forward innovation and collaboration.
This year’s one-day conference is jam-packed with a roster of dynamic and engaging TED-Talk-style presentations from 50 law tech startup entrepreneurs, technology experts, law firm leaders, and various innovation and startup funders.
Thomson Reuters is delighted to be partnering with Legal Geek once again this year following the success of last year’s inaugural Legal Geek Conference. In supporting Legal Geek, we hope to champion the emergence of law tech companies, and support them to ensure they have a clear route to tap in to the legal market.
Growing appetite for law tech start-ups
This year’s conference takes place during an exciting period for the law tech start-up community.
As advances in technology continue to shake up the legal industry and change the way services are delivered, it has seen swathes of new law tech start-up companies emerge – all looking to enhance existing legal services offerings.
Earlier in the year, Thomson Reuters published a report with Legal Geek, revealing that investment into UK law tech startups had reached 16 million pounds, representing encouraging levels of interest from investors and players in the legal services market.
The report Movers and Shakers: UK law tech startups added that until recently there had been limited incentive to change: the traditional model has continued to bring handsome rewards to law firms across the market; the buy-side has largely stayed with what they know. However, ‘new ways of driving efficiency are becoming increasingly important as workloads grow, budget pressures intensify and all players seek a competitive edge.’
Increased efficiency and cost reduction are certainly the two key market drivers that continue to intensify, the report concluded, adding that with no evidence to suggest that these pressures will reduce any time soon, the stage does indeed appear to be set for continued growth in UK law tech.
What’s on the Legal Geek Conference agenda?
Last year’s Legal Geek Conference had a fun, informal atmosphere, bustling with energy and innovation – an identity promoted by the organisers, who ask the attendees to ‘please, please not wear a tie,’ and come along to learn, teach and make friends.
And this year will be no different.
Over 1,000 delegates, including 100 startups, have registered for the conference from more than 20 countries. Legal Geek will be showcasing a number of engaging sessions throughout the day on the main stage, with more than 50 speakers lined up to lead TED-Talk-style discussions focusing on legal tech in practice, cyber security, as well as insight from pioneers who are actively introducing technology to the legal sector.
There will also be a range of other activities for the delegates to enjoy, from the ‘startup alley’, where startups can exhibit their business offering, to all-day street food, and not to forget the Legal Geek Startup Awards in the evening.
If you are attending, keep a look out for Thomson Reuters and Legal Geek’s ‘startup map’, a visual representation of the UK legal startup community, using a London Underground tube line style map to indicate the market segments that start-ups are operating in.
The Thomson Reuters Strategy and Product team will be attending the conference, so make sure you come over to the stand to say hello, and have a quick snap with the startup map − we’d be happy to see you.
Jim Leason, VP Market Development and Strategy, Legal
