Today's Tech: Legaltech New York 2016 And My Invisibility Cloak

We have a problem. It's called sexism. And it ain't pretty.

Digital TechnologyLast week I made my annual pilgrimage to Legaltech New York. This conference is hands down one of my favorite legal technology conferences in large part because of the people. This conference is one of the rare occasions where many of the best and brightest in legal technology are drawn to the same place at the same time.

So without fail, every time I attend Legaltech, I meet so many smart people with whom I have fascinating conversations about the impact of technology on the practice of law. This year was no exception. I learned a ton and walked away with lots of ideas and insight on the future of our profession. I also walked away wondering if I’d somehow acquired the superpower of invisibility — more on that in a bit.

But first, here are a few of my takeaways. First, legal cloud computing seems to finally be coming of age. Legal cloud companies are gaining traction and legitimacy in the space — so much so that the emphasis on “cloud” seems to have disappeared. Instead, the focus is on the benefits offered by a particular software platform rather than on where the data resides.

That’s why NetDocuments is doing so well, as I learned when I spoke to Marriott Murdock, the Marketing Director for NetDocuments. We discussed how much NetDocuments has grown in recent years by finding ways to improve their platform and expand their feature offerings. Their latest integration with DocuSign is a great example of that strategy.

Another cloud company that is finding success is AltLegal. Its CEO, Nehal Madhani, explained why the company rebranded itself late last year and how it’s been gaining momentum with IP attorneys and has simplified the process of preparing and managing trademarks, copyrights and patents.

Lexcity is another company that recently rebranded and expanded from an iPad app, eDepoze, to a full-featured cloud-based platform designed to streamline all post ediscovery events in a case. As I learned from Lexcity’s CEO, Shawn Kennedy, with Lexcity, lawyers can reduce reliance on paper documents and can instead annotate, mark, and present electronic exhibits during litigation events.

eDiscovery Assistant is another cloud-based platform that recently transitioned from an iPad app to a web-based tool. As founder Kelly Twigger explained, the newly expanded platform is a practice tool that helps lawyers stay abreast of changes in the rapidly changing field of ediscovery by curating ediscovery resources for litigators, including rules, case digests, checklists, templates, and more.

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Finally, I caught up with the CEO of Lex Machina, Josh Becker, and we talked about the recent acquisition by LexisNexis and Lex Machina’s latest feature release, the Attorney Data Engine. First, Josh assured me that even though they’d been acquired, it would be business as usual with no major changes other than the infusion of Lexis’ additional resources and knowledge and the expansion into more practice areas, not just IP. He also discussed their newest feature, the Attorney Data Engine, which leverages previously untapped PACER data sources on attorneys, providing lawyers with even more analytics about the cases they’re working on.

After talking to all of these innovators, I decided take a tour of the Exhibit Hall. But instead of seeking out booth swag, I decided to recreate an experiment that I conducted at the ILTA conference last fall.

The rules were simple: I would slowly walk through all sections of the Exhibit Hall and try to make eye contact with and smile at those manning the booths. Anyone who provided a verbal response to me, even one as simple as “hi,” made the cut. I walked through each section of the Exhibit Hall, which housed over 160 vendors, three times. It took me nearly 1.5 hours.

During my stroll, I ran into a colleague, Tim Baran of Rocket Matter, and told him what I was up to. He suggested I should have a control as a point of comparison and offered to walk through a small section of the Exhibit Hall to see how many responses he received. He walked by approximately 20 booths and then returned to me and reported that he’d been verbally acknowledged by 4 people.

A few minutes later, I ran into another colleague, Jack Grow, CEO of Law Toolbox, and told him about my experiment. He also agreed to act as a control, and after watching my “browsing” technique, he then imitated it as he walked by approximately 30 booths. He told me that four people spoke to him.

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I then went on my way and after walking through all sections of the Exhibit Hall (three sections located on two different levels of the Hilton) at least three times, I tallied up the results. It didn’t take long. Only 6 people manning booths acknowledged me.[1] Keep in mind that the PR teams for some of these companies (whose booth representatives completely ignored me) emailed me multiple times in an attempt to get me to meet with their executives to learn — and write about — their products.

Here are the six companies (out of more 160) that made the cut and actually acknowledged me:

So just to sum up, both Tim and Jack walked by a section of booths only one time, not three, and between the two of them they walked by approximately 50 booths. They were acknowledged eight times total. 

I walked by 160+ booths at least three times and was acknowledged a mere six times. Not exactly a scientific experiment, but I feel fairly comfortable declaring this: Houston, we have a problem. It’s called sexism. And it ain’t pretty.


[1] There are two companies that are exempt from this experiment since I personally knew someone manning their booths when I walked by: Law Toolbox and The Payne Group.


Niki BlackNicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and the Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter at@nikiblack and she can be reached at niki.black@mycase.com.

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