I have lived through legal technology revolutions before. The conversion of legal research from print to online moved though law firms like slow rolling train.  Lexis, the first commercial online  legal research product launched in 1970. Many firms did not fully embrace online research and abandon print until the pandemic drove the profession to remote work, nearly 50 years later. Analytics in legal research provided dramatic new insights into the behavior of judges, courts, attorneys and clients. It took less than ten years following the launch of Lex Machina in 2013 for legal analytics to move from esoteric to essential. The promise  of, if not the practice  with  Generative AI swept like a wildfire through the legal information market. When ChatGPT launched it took only five days to reach a million users and by January 2023 (2 months later) it had a 100 million users. Enter the “hype cycle.”

While OpenAi dominated the commercial market, Casetext, which had early access to GTP 4 dominated legal industry news headlines in 2023. Read the full post at Legal Tech HubContinue Reading Standing on the threshold of change: 2023 in review (A somewhat irreverent review of the AI hysteria That Swept Through the Legal Industry)

This survey is intended to  gather feedback on both products and projects which you started or stopped during the past year. I had added additional questions related to the emergence of generative AI.

Please take a few minutes to respond to the survey at this link. The results will be summarized and posted here in

This coming Sunday I will participating in a panel at the American Association of Law Libraries Meeting and Conference in Boston. “Exploring the Opportunities & Risks of Generative AI” is sponsored by Wolters Kluwer. Ken Crutchfield, of Wolters Kluwer will moderate the panel which includes Vishal Agnihotri , of Alston & Bird and Courtney Toiaivao

Even lawyers who have been the most ardent print advocates have loosened their grip on their favorite treatises and deskbooks. The pandemic-enforced remote work environment drove most print holdouts to online resources. In 2023 many law firm libraries are completely digital while others have shifted significant amounts of their budgets from print to digital.

Although the large enterprise platforms such as Lexis, Westlaw and Bloomberg Law represent a significant portion of most budgets, library directors and knowledge managers also manage dozens and sometimes hundreds of other digital licenses. There has been a proliferation of specialty products targeting specific practice areas or workflows from topics as diverse as credit default swaps, social media monitoring, and predictive litigation analytics. The acquisition and management of these specialty products involves a different kind of licensing analysis, even though many issues may be similar to the large platform licensing issues.

If you are new to the world of digital resource licensing, this checklist will highlight some of the key issues to address when reviewing a license. The first thing you need to understand is that most license agreements are one-sided in favor of the vendor. All the liabilities and risks are on the purchaser. That is why it is so important for you to understand the risks and opportunities associated with digital licensing.

The ground rules. If you are new to your organization, there are several issues that should be addressed in advance. Identify the standard practices and procedures in your firm for procurement, contract review, and security review.

Work with your procurement team. If your firm has a procurement team, you should still be involved in the licensing process. The procurement team needs to understand how the product will be used and who will need to have access. If there is no procurement team, there may be a designated contract attorney who reviews the contracts for the law firm. Develop a collaborative relationship with those professionals. They can be important allies in the process.

Security. Determine if your firm has a specific security review process for vendors. Security compliance can be a complete deal killer. Many firms now require vendors to answer security compliance questionnaires and to disclose their security standards in advance of any trial or contract. Security issues should be addressed in advance of the licensing process. Confirm that the vendor is willing to provide security documentation.

Common Licensing Issues. Below are a sampling of licensing issues that should be considered for all types of digital licenses but are particularly important when assessing a niche product with a limited license. Read the full post at LegalTech HubContinue Reading Checklist for the Negotiation of Digital Subscriptions – Budget Control and Risk Management Strategies

Legal Tech Hub has taken a big leap forward with the launch of a premium subscriptions service LTH Premium.  LTH provides insights for professionals across the legal spectrum (Innovation, KM/Research, Legal Ops, IT) who are tasked with monitoring the legal tech market or identifying the right resource for a specific workflow need. LTH provides “educational resources, objective reports and insights about legal technology, and tools to support the selection, evaluation, procurement, and implementation of legal technology. “

LHT offers quick access to resources such as checklists which can help legal and business professionals assess new tech solutions  across the procurement lifecycle– from assessment through adoption.

LTH Premium is built on the original Legal Tech Hub taxonomy and product profiles are enhanced practical guides commissioned from industry experts,Continue Reading Legal Tech Hub Launches LTH Premium – Enhanced Procurement Expertise

Fastcase Announces 2018 “Fastcase 50” Honorees

The Award Honors 50 Innovators, Visionaries, and Leaders in Law

 Washington, DC (July 9, 2018) – Legal publisher Fastcase today announced the company’s annual list of “Fastcase 50” honorees. Selected from online nominations, the award recognizes the year’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, and leaders in the law. Many of the 2018 honorees are pioneers in the areas of access to justice, artificial intelligence, and visualization tools for legal data.

 View the 2018 winners at www.fastcase.com/fastcase50/2018

Since the inaugural awards in 2011, the Fastcase 50 has illuminated entrepreneurs and visionaries who are catapulting law and legal technology into a new era. The Fastcase 50 class of 2018 represents a diverse group of lawyers, legal technologists, policymakers, law librarians, bar association executives, and innovators from all walks of life.

“The Fastcase 50 Award season is exciting for us each year, as we get to honor a collection of smart, driven innovators with a passion to improve our profession,” said Fastcase CEO Ed Walters. “It’s fun for our team each year to draw inspiration from our heroes, many of whom are doing terrific, unsung work at the frontiers of law.”

This is the eighth class of Fastcase 50 honorees, and for the eighth consecutive year, the company received a record number of nominees. Fastcase is happy to introduce the Fastcase 50 Class of 2018. “This year’s class makes 400 honorees,” Walters said, “and if you’d like to see who has done some of the most important work in law, we have compiled all 400 biographies by year on our website. This group is a constant source of inspiration for us.” You can find a list of all past honorees at www.fastcase.com/fastcase50, and a Twitter list of posts by honorees at https://twitter.com/fastcase/lists/fastcase-50.

Congratulations to the 2018 Class of Fastcase 50 recipients:

Shruti Ajitsaria, Counsel and Head of Fuse, Allen & Overy

Kenton Brice, Director of Technology Innovation, The University of Oklahoma College of Law

John Browning, Shareholder, Passman & Jones; Adjunct Professor of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law; Adjunct Professor of Law, Texas Wesleyan University School of Law

Femi Cadmus, Director, J. Michael Goodson Law Library at Duke University School of LAw; Vice-President, American Association of Law Librarians
Continue Reading Fastcase Announces 2018 Fastcase 50 Winners Including AALL Executive Director, 3 CKO/Library Directors, Law Firm Partners and Tech Innovators


Scott Mozarsky


Greg McCaffery, BloombergBNA, CEO and Scott Mozarsky President
of the BloombergBNA legal division discuss Bloomberg BNA strategy, AI,
predictive technologies, gatekeepers, advisory boards and BNA platform
migration plans. Contrary to recent rumors McCaffrey emphasized that customers
will be able to continue purchasing BloombergBNA vertical products after the
content is migrated to the