Who is being harmed by bad campaigning?

Last week, I reported on this space about the sale of Kira to Litera and the intention to release a standalone product for corporate lawyers under the Zuva brand. The media release emphasized that Kira technology would continue to be operated and developed under the new umbrella.

Somewhat surprisingly, UK vendor Luminance responded with an aggressive campaign urging existing Kira customers in the legal sector to switch, portraying the Kira-sell in a distinctly different, negative light. One could read from the Luminance press release that it was a child disposal, the fact that the existing management would perform a strategic advisory function was left unmentioned.

Several media are now asking what drove Luminance to this activity, and who actually benefits from bad campaigning. On the one hand, this is coffee-bag reading, because without knowing the reactions of the customers, one will not come to a conclusive answer. In any case, the commenters seem to assume that Luminance itself will come out of this damaged. However, I think that the issue shows the enormous pressure that even established legaltech companies are under. Is it the concern of falling behind in development resources? Is it fear that their own customers will switch to Litera's comprehensive software solution because they appreciate the all-in-one concept? - Everything is possible

Markets on the move

As reported by alm, Legaltech group Litera is acquiring industry leader Kira, effective Sept. 1 of this year. The product and brand are to be continued, and at the same time Litera is aiming for market expansion. Why and to what extent can this also be significant for Europe?

Kira is a specialist in AI-based automated document analysis. Main use case is due diligences / data rooms in transactions. Accordingly, Kira's customers are mainly law firms, globally.

Litera, which has grown enormously through numerous acquisitions, describes itself as a leading provider of legal workflow and workspace software. The focus is clearly on speed and effectiveness of legal work towards client service and retention. Litera sees itself as one-stop-shop for any type of legal work. That's why Litera aims to leverage Kira's core expertise in its own software suite. 

The big difference, however, is that Litera also operates in the corporate law market, and by spinning off its own new startup Zuva, Kira is also expected to follow this path in the future.

Consultants on both sides of the Atlantic won't be too happy to hear that.

Justice by app?

 

One topic that comes up again and again in the course of the home office discussion (see last week’s article "Home or Office?") is that of fairness in the distribution of work. Specifically, it is a matter of the assumption that those practitioners or assistants who are available on site are disproportionately assigned to acute tasks.

 Of course, one could argue that the opposite would also be logically justifiable: after all, there are supposed to be managers who basically assume that employees in the home office contribute little or nothing to the company. Consequently, these superiors would then assign a disproportionately large amount of work to home office employees. However, we don't know.

 A new software product wants to clear up this lack of knowledge. It is called Capacity and is intended to bring transparency to the workload of employees.

The assignment status of the employees integrated in Capacity can be viewed at any time via a dashboard, and unfairness can be prevented. Even more, employees can grab jobs that interest them, which, according to Capacity's founders, should lead to increased employee satisfaction.

Capacityapp.io is still in its beginnings, but in any case it is an interesting initiative to eliminate possible irregularities in the distribution of law firm work.

Filters, views, relations - and where is the AI?

During a panel discussion, Judge Michael Kunz from the Vienna Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court) showed the essential functions of the new case management system "Justice 3.0" in Austria. In a nutshell: the years of preparatory work have paid off. Judges and public prosecutors now have access to a digital case management system that offers a wide range of functions:

Users can filter their cases according to a wide variety of criteria, they can also build their own "views," and even create relation tables, where key points of the parties' arguments are compared and linked to the file content. The fact that the system supports fully digital communication with all parties involved is almost taken for granted in Austria. This also includes the use of digital signatures.

The framework for Justice 3.0 was purchased from the Bavarian government, but all functions were developed in Austria. It is to be rolled out to all courts and public prosecutors' offices by the middle of next year. At those departments where it is already available, its use is strongly recommended by the employer.

And if a completely new system is being set up, aren't artificial intelligence components also being used? More about that soon ...