A number of large law firms have now launched various technology incubator programs, promising legal mentorship and often financial resources to burgeoning legal technology startups in an effort to support the development of emerging innovation. Dentons, Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz and Allen & Overy are among the big firms who have established these programs at their firms.

Bryan Cave's TechX program, which launched initially last February, is a different kind of incubator. Instead of “incubating” various technology companies in the legal sector, TechX is looking to bolster the firm's own attorneys in understanding and shepherding in new technology innovation to its core infrastructure. The firm announced this week its first major technology licensing agreement through the TechX incubator with Contract Companion, Microsystems' contract drafting tool.

Katie DeBord, chief innovation officer for Bryan Cave, said the TechX team, notably its transactional attorney participants, saw a lot of value in Contract Companion's software in handling a frustrating but necessary task for contract drafting. “It was just an easy technology for attorneys to use and like. It didn't take a lot of training, it didn't require them to log into a separate system, and it solved a very common problem.”

At least 35 of the firm's transactional attorneys piloted the tool, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to scan draft contracts for initial concerns.

DeBord said the TechX program is more broadly intended to help the firm's attorneys get a better sense of how law firms can and should choose the technology they use. “It was really my effort and the firm's effort to get our technology-forward attorneys, our tech-interested attorneys, involved in technology evaluation,” she explained.

Technology acquisition for a large law firm is not an easy proposition, DeBord noted. She explained that creating “an added layer on the infrastructure,” ultimately “can be both positive but have unintended consequences. There needs to be a lot of thought that goes into what we're doing.”

Contract Companion's use of AI infrastructure is one of its more attractive features on paper, but DeBord said that part of the power of a program such as TechX is helping the firm's attorneys get a better grasp of what AI could mean for their work, and how it may fit together with other important kinds of technology.

“That's part of the reason we formed TechX, to have this understanding,” DeBord said. “As attorneys understand AI and how it can augment their practice, they learn to appreciate data in a different way. They appreciate why it's important to have a rigorous knowledge management system so that they can collect and use that data later on.”

“People think it's just an instantaneous solution that is just going to obviate the need for lawyers today. Giving [attorneys] the ability to learn through a practical interface what it is and why it matters, and envision how that could impact their practice over time, I think is a really important thing to do,” DeBord added.