Many legal technologists look to partnerships and bundling to cater to law firms and legal departments that often prefer to customize their technology strategy by cobbling together different platforms. 

Utilizing this strategy, matter management software Clio has announced the addition of 20 new integration partners to the platform. The company's new integration partners are Attornify, Birdeye, Case Status, DocketBird, Embroker, FlexxLegal, Gideon, Inventive-IP, Klyant, LawDroid, LawTap, Lawyaw, Lead Docket, Meidascope Legal by Copypants, Medilenz Services, PATLive, Rainmaker, Repsight, Smith.ai, Time Tracker by eBillity and WealthCounsel. These new integrations run the gamut of different applications, from billing to document automation to client-attorney collaboration tools.

The integrations are enabled in large part by the company's new API, essentially a programming interface that allows other software to easily talk to the Clio platform. “With our new API v4 and our Developer Fund, we are fostering an ecosystem to build against for years to come,” Clio CEO Jack Newton said in a statement.

Andrew Gay, Clio manager of strategic partners, noted to LTN that practice-specific platform tools are a big part of Clio's integration strategy. “Because legal is so fragmented into specific and niche practice areas, for a company like Clio that is a broader practice management software, for us to be able to offer practice area tools is a very powerful way for us to offer customization, and do it at scale,” he said.

This new class of integrations also has a few tools that you might not necessarily have seen catering specifically to the legal community a few years ago. “We''re attracting technology outside of legal to offer them to legal professionals. That hopefully enables new workflows in a way that wasn't possible before,” Gay said.

The integration class announcement aligns with Clio's announcement at its annual user conference last year that the platform would focus in coming years on partnerships and building out its “App Directory,” which contains its integrations. “It was really an intentional decision for us to codify and centralize all these tools so that our customers could come and find them and use technology that has made a difference in their practice,” Gay said of the App Directory.

Newton announced at the same conference that Clio would launch a $1 million “Developer Fund” tasked with investing in development, marketing and mentorship for legal technology companies who could integrate with Clio's matter management platform. A spokesperson for the company previously told LTN that the fund was part of the company's effort to build “an ecosystem that far outpaces the rate of innovation of any single company.”

Gay echoed Clio's interest in building out its partner ecosystem quickly. ”I'd love to have 1,000 by the end of next year,” he said.