The recession is already choosing its winners and losers: The once-strong appetite for M&A work is increasingly being replaced by a growing demand in bankruptcy services. And due to efforts started in advance of the current economy, some in the legal tech space are looking to capitalize on this new opportunity.

Financial intelligence provider Reorg has announced the launch of its Legal Billing Rates Database, which aims to provide corporations and law firms with benchmarks regarding outside counsel's bankruptcy fees. The goal is to help general counsel and other corporate officers make informed bankruptcy hiring decisions, as well as help law firms competitively set their rates.

Darby Green, Reorg's senior director of product, strategy and innovation, explained that the database pulls interim, monthly, and final fee applications from U.S. Bankruptcy Court dockets in the Southern District of New York and the District of Delaware, which she called the "preeminent jurisdictions for these types of large Chapter 11 [bankruptcy cases]."

She noted that "the attorneys involved in these [cases] come from all over … and also fee examiners expect that from jurisdiction to jurisdiction you're not changing your fee, so it can become a good place to get an overall sense of what these fees look like."

To be sure, while demand for bankruptcy services has grown in recent weeks, the new database was not built in response to the current market. "When you build a data science-driven tool, it actually takes a very long time to do; we've been working on this behind closed doors for more than a year," Green said.

She added that the development was "really a time-consuming process" given the need to structure docket data that was obtained via PACER. For example, "even something as simple as figuring the department [took time]. Since every law firm is structured a little bit differently, you're not going to necessarily find 'bankruptcy lawyers' at every firm, you might find 'restructuring,' you might find 'financial insolvency,' etc."

Of course, Reorg is far from the only company offering legal spend or bankruptcy analytics, with LexisNexis, Bloomberg, Wolters Kluwer, Bodhala and Brightflag, among others, competing in the market. What's more, legal research providers such as Fastcase and Casetext are also planning on expanding their bankruptcy analytics and services.

Green, however, believes that where Reorg stands out is in its sole focus on bankruptcy fees. "Our understanding is that we are the only company that is applying machine learning and this type of analysis to bankruptcy dockets. There are a lot of providers looking at district court dockets, but what is unique about us is that because we're so focused on the high yield and stress and distress markets that we are really embedded in bankruptcy dockets, and that provides an advantage," she said.