LexLab Welcomes Fall 2019 Accelerator Program Participants

LexLab at UC Law SF, an innovation hub for emerging legal technologies, today announced its second cohort of legal tech startups.

Following the success of its first cohort earlier this year, LexLab has accepted five legal tech startups to participate in its accelerator program. From machine learning and natural language processing to an app that helps non-native English speakers navigate the immigration process, the five startups joining this fall represent a diverse selection from the legal tech space.

“We’re excited to get to work with this group of companies. It was incredible to see the growth of the startups during our inaugural cohort. Now, with a year under our belt, we know even more about how to help these companies prepare for success in the legal tech space,” said Drew Amerson, Director of LexLab.

Participants in last year’s inaugural cohort include Syntexys, a document analytics startup that uses machine learning and statistical natural language processing to provide business insights, mitigate risk, and predict contract outcomes, Due Course, a startup that offers an AI-powered platform to provide professional development training, and Clearlaw, a virtual assistant to guide a legal team through continuous and augmented contract review.

The fall 2019 cohort will ultimately participate in LexLab’s Demo Day on Nov. 21, 2019, which will see the startups make pitches to potential investors.

The startups in the 2019 cohort are:

LawZam, a web application that helps legal consumers find attorneys and purchase online legal consultations by text chat and video conference. LawZam’s network includes attorneys in every U.S. state, including lawyers practicing family law, personal injury, criminal defense, wills and estates, immigration, and many other practices. LawZam is developing a new service that will enable their network attorneys to offer and sell flat fee services to clients.

1LAW, a virtual legal services platform developed by lawyers to improve the delivery of legal services from enterprise to small law firms. The pillars of the platform are communication, automation and cyber-security. 1LAW puts the power of the platform in the hands of the expert, allowing lawyers and technologists to tailor their own solutions. Ever mindful of Access to Justice issues throughout the world 1LAW provides many public-facing tools and solutions for free.

KaleidoGlobe, a business-to-business cloud software technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with an additional presence in Boston, MA. The company specializes in applying state-of-the-art algorithms in natural language processing, machine learning, and Bayesian statistics to the discovery, organization, and machine comprehension of unstructured text content. The company was founded late 2018 by MIT graduates with management consulting experience who wanted to create a commercial solution that could maximize the value of information present within the knowledge bases of large enterprises. As of late 2019, the company is adapting its core technology for legal document analytics and is actively seeking partnerships in legal services sector.

SpeedLegal, a business that helps lawyers streamline legal due diligence and document review. SpeedLegal allows their users to reduce 50% of the cost of legal due diligence and avoid making mistakes so they can make more deals. SpeedLegal uses a set of machine learning tools to extract useful data from bulk-uploaded contracts so lawyers can focus on the parts that require more attention. SpeedLegal’s users have higher ROIs on the document review process compared to those not using its red-flag analysis and summary report features.

Formally, a legal tech startup that simplifies asylum and immigration forms, specifically focused on tackling the lack of legal representation for asylum seekers in the United States. Currently, about 86% of asylum seekers have no legal representation, making them 5 times more likely to be rejected. Formally works with high impact immigration organizations and lawyers to streamline their processes by making complicated forms accessible to applicants. This allows partners to triple the number of clients they can help. Formally also provides a solution for asylum seekers and refugees who cannot access a lawyer. Formally provides translations into 100+ languages as well as valuable context and accessible design to make these highly complex forms accessible. Once the applicant fills our information, Formally can pre-populate all subsequent forms: from fee waivers to social security applications.