The 2024 Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards Winners Are Here!

Law.com and Legaltech News are proud to announce this year's winners for the Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards, celebrating the achievements of law firms, legal departments, providers and ALSPs leading the legal profession into the future through technology and innovation.

On Monday night, ALM kicked off Legalweek 2024 by hosting an awards ceremony to celebrate the fourth annual Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards. These awards recognized the most innovative achievements of the past year from in-house legal departments, law firms, and the tech provider and service partner community in 41 different categories.

This year's submissions were the most impressive we've seen yet. All our nominees, finalists and winners should be proud of their accomplishments and commended for the hard work they've devoted to pushing the legal industry into the future. 

We also thank our external judging panel, as well as the hard work of countless people behind the scenes who helped to make this year's awards possible.

We're proud to present the 2024 winners of the Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards below. In the coming weeks, you'll have the opportunity to read more about each of our winners in a series of Q&As.

We look forward to hosting these awards again next year alongside ALM at Legalweek 2025, being held from in March in New York. More information about nominations for those awards will be forthcoming later this year, and you can stay up-to-date with notifications via this link. If you have any questions or suggestions for a category we should include, drop us a line at [email protected].

Outstanding Achievement in Legal Technology

Winner: Lori Cohen & Gerard Buitrago, Greenberg Traurig

The Outstanding Achievement in Legal Technology award was new this year, and was not open for public submission. This award was created to acknowledge a truly unique and trailblazing use of technology in the practice of law. Lori Cohen is a career trial litigator with an impressive track record of 58 defense verdicts. In March 2022, with no warning, Lori lost her voice, and it has yet to return. While she continues to try everything possible to get it back, she also teamed up with her longtime friend and trial technologist Gerard Buitrago (her "secret weapon") to find a solution that would eventually get her back in the courtroom. Together, they figured out how to use artificial intelligence to recreate Lori's actual voice, allowing her to continue pursuing the career that she loves. I'll leave it to Lori to say more in her own words.

Legal Industry Lifetime Achievement Award Winners

Winner: Tess Blair, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

Like many young litigation associates digging through boxes of discovery in the early 2000s, Tess Blair thought, 'there has to be a better way.' Unlike many, though, she decided to do something about it. In 2004, she founded Morgan Lewis's eData practice, and she led it for 19 years, until stepping down very recently. While she was building and growing the eData Practice, Blair  continued to run her own practice as national discovery counsel to some of the world's biggest organizations.

Winner: Marla Crawford, Cimplifi

Marla Crawford may currently be in-house, but early in her career she was one of the industry's first e-discovery lawyers, having worked on the Enron litigation at Jones Day on behalf of Lehman Brothers. After 22 years as a discovery attorney and early legal technology adopter at Jones Day, she went on to build and manage the e-discovery program at Goldman Sachs, before taking her current role as General Counsel of Cimplifi. Many in e-discovery refer to Marla by first name only, like Oprah or Madonna, and she's officially won awards for being "the life of the party."

Winner: Wendell Jisa, Reveal

Wendell Jisa started at the ground level of the legal industry, delivering boxes to law firms across Chicago. From there, he embarked on a personal mission to disrupt an antiquated legal market with technology. Nearly 15 years after founding his first company, Reveal, in his hometown, he has grown it into a major global enterprise.

Winner: Barry Solomon, Litera

Barry Solomon first realized the potential of technology to improve the efficiency of both the practice and business of law while practicing law at Sidley Austin in the late 80s and early 90s, and was the first lawyer to request and be issued a computer there. Before assuming his current role at Litera, Solomon was the co-founder and leader of two different legal tech companies—InterAction and Foundation.

Winner: Carla Swansburg, ClearyX

Carla Swansburg has been a trailblazer in legal technology for over three decades. In 2021, she took on the role of CEO of a new, wholly owned subsidiary of Cleary Gottlieb, tasked with building and scaling a fully remote, tech-forward team focused on reimagining how legal services can be delivered by lawyers located across the globe to clients also located across the globe.

In-House Categories

Best Use of Artificial Intelligence: Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company has successfully produced significant productivity gains while building the legal ops function on the fly from the ground up, while continuing to foster machine-learning applications, pioneering the use of gen AI in-house, establishing legal expenditure dashboards, and developing advanced predictive analytics platforms. The resulting metrics indicate significant time and cost savings and provide valuable information to inform future success.

E-Discovery and Litigation Technology: Uber Technologies, Inc.

With a lean, four-person in-house e-discovery team, Uber Technologies has developed custom data processing tools as well as proprietary solutions for the collection, production, and protection of sensitive data from numerous sources.

Innovator of the Year (Individual): Darth K. Vaughn, Ford Motor Company, Office of the General Counsel

With a background as a successful trial attorney and a business technology consultant, Darth Vaughn brings a unique perspective and skills to his current in-house role in legal ops and litigation. In the past year, he has received continual approval from leadership to expand his team and be an early mover on implementing generative AI to establish best legal practices and create a strategic vision for the company.

Finalsists:

• Jay Choi and the Patent Legal Team, Uber Technologies, Inc.
• Mohammad Totonchian, Altus Group

Most Innovative Legal Department of the Year: Uber Technologies, Inc.

From negotiating strategic partnerships with key industry players to counseling product, engineering and regulatory teams, Uber Technologies has had to navigate novel pathways and, in some cases, develop new ones in the past year. The result was the successful launch of autonomous vehicles to the public, which involved applying sophisticated ML and AI to make real-time decisions and establishing industry standards for consumer safety with radically new technology.

Finalist:

• Ford Motor Company

Most Innovative Legal Operations Team of the Year: Ford Motor Company

When Ford Motor Company's current General Counsel took the reins in 2021, he brought an even more ambitious vision to an already innovative legal ops practice. In the past year, Ford has been pioneering the use of generative AI in-house. One year into generative AI, the department has implemented 25 GenAI use cases, resulting in early productivity gains of over 30% across various practice areas.

Finalist:

• Workday

Law Firm Categories

Best Use of Artificial Intelligence: DLA Piper

In March 2023, DLA Piper significantly expanded its Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics practice, and now has 14 data scientists and more than 100 lawyers, policy experts, and technologists globally who advise on AI adoption, testing clients' AI for bias and compliance, create AI legal and compliance tech for clients, and more.

Finalists:

• Cleary Gottlieb
• Goodwin
• Reed Smith
• Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP

Best Use of Emerging Technology (Non-AI): Munger, Tolles and Olson — Reanna Martinez

At Munger, Tolles and Olson, Reanna Martinez undertook a groundbreaking project focused on leveraging Microsoft Dynamics 365, the Power Platform, and Azure Data Lake to create a data hub that efficiently feeds information to downstream systems and allows users to leverage client, matter, and people data effectively and develop tailored solutions and tools to perform better legal work.

Finalists:

• Latham & Watkins – Decentralization Matrix
• Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
• SixFifty, Powered by Wilson Sonsini

E-Discovery Technology and Innovation: Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

 The eData practice at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius helped its lawyers with time-consuming e-discovery tasks by developing an eData Tech Stack made up of three tools aimed at solving discrete problems: a Search Term Validator; a Microsoft Teams Chat Sorter; and a Training and Skills-Assessment Platform that provides customized e-discovery training for firm employees.

Finalists:

• Arnold & Porter
• King & Spalding – Rose J. Hunter Jones
• Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
• Reed Smith

Enabling Start-Up Success: NEXT powered by Shulman Rogers

NEXT launched an initiative to support entrepreneurs with a new, holistic approach to facilitating access to seed to Series A capital via a variety of events and tools, including investor readiness solutions, pitch prep workshops, investor connections, investor showcase events and more.

Finalists:

• Goodwin
• Latham & Watkins – Pre-Incorporation Questionnaire

ESG Enablement Through Technology: Ropes & Gray

Ropes & Gray has been focusing on the area of ESG for three years and recently developed a unique online interactive tool that enables asset managers to effectively and efficiently navigate the complex web of state and federal ESG laws specific to their industry, enhancing compliance outcomes and reducing attendant costs.

Finalist:

• Reed Smith

Innovations in Diversity and Inclusion: Baker McKenzie

For three years running, Baker McKenzie has hosted an eight-week Summer Internship Program for undergraduate students interested in business development, marketing or legal careers and who seek to create a more inclusive legal profession. This year's internship program added a nonprofit element through a partnership with The Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law.

Finalists:

• Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi PC ("CSG Law") - George Spadoro
• Eversheds Sutherland

Innovations in Hybrid/Remote Work: Akin

Akin's internal Staffing Hub program developed a role-based dashboard that provides visibility into the firm's data-driven staffing process aimed at ensuring equitable work allocation and optimal alignment of human capital to meet client needs. 

Innovations in Knowledge Management: Fisher Phillips

The KM team at Fisher Phillips was instrumental in the early rollout of generative AI in legal, assisting Casetext develop and test their Co-Counsel AI legal assistant, and then becoming the first firm in the world to deploy it worldwide. Afterward they continued to evangelize for legal gen AI and how law firms can use it responsibly for KM and thrive.

Finalists:

• Fragomen
• Morgan Lewis – ML Client Intel
• Morgan Lewis – VizBridge
• Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, & Garrison

Innovations in Pro Bono: Reed Smith LLP

Reed Smith undertook an ambitious initiative to provide women refugees who are at high risk of further injury with end-to-end protection during successful resettlement. In conjunction with the Canadian government, the Lamp Lifeboat Ladder program is providing a safe pathway to relocation in Canada for at least 90 refugee families.

Finalists:

• Baker McKenzie – Justice in Action
• Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
• SixFifty, Powered by Wilson Sonsini
• Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP

Innovators of the Year – Law Firm (Individual): Danielle Benecke – Baker McKenzie

Danielle Benecke founded the Machine Learning practice at Baker McKenzie years before generative AI became popular. Under her leadership, the firm became the first mover in capitalizing on AI and machine learning to revolutionize workflows and better serve the firm's clients. One of our judging panel simply said, "She's a superstar!"

Finalists:

• Jeremy Burdge – Hogan Lovells
• Carmen Brun – Eversheds Sutherland
• Rachelle Dubow – Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
• William Gaus – Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP
• Ghaith Mahmood – Latham & Watkins

Regulatory, Governance and Compliance Technology: Hogan Lovells

 Hogan Lovells created a holistic information governance solution to tackle the challenges presented by exponential data growth that securely stores critical data in categorized and accessible form, puts automatic triggers in place to purge data, and allows for data tagging.

Finalists:

• Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
• Eversheds Sutherland
• Fragomen – Nomadic
• Reed Smith – Gender-Affirming Care Tracker
• Polsinelli Online Solutions for Home Care (POSH) – Angelo Spinola
• Spencer Fane – Allen Darrah, CIO

Tech-Enabled Transactional Practice of the Year: Orrick

Orrick reengineered the M&A transaction by launching a new process and platform that features 14 interconnected tech tools, new legal roles, workflows and process changes to help M&A teams execute more efficiently, prioritize strategic issues and set up a successful post-acquisition integration.

Finalists:

• Kirkland & Ellis
• Thompson Hine LLP

Provider Categories

Best Use of Artificial Intelligence – E-Discovery & Litigation: Casetext

Casetext led the charge in applying LLMs to substantive legal work in the form of an AI assistant called CoCounsel that replicated attorneys' best workflows in a reliable, scalable, secure and hallucination-free way, thanks to early access to OpenAI's most advanced models. One of our external judges noted that the breadth & scale of what Casetext achieved with a tight deadline is impressive

Finalists:

• Altumatim
• Clearbrief
• Everlaw
• Lex Machina
• LexisNexis
• Paxton AI
• Relativity
• Reveal

Best Use of Artificial Intelligence – Contract, Document & Project Management: NetDocuments

NetDocuments approached the development of AI capabilities not as a single solution or product, but a technology that should be used to enrich the entire document lifecycle and every single legal workflow. The result was a collaboration with Microsoft and Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to create a solution that can extract intelligence from an organization's entire corpus of documents.

Finalists:

• Evisort
• Gavel
• Luminance

Best Emerging Technology (Non-AI): CloudNine

CloudNine created a platform for managing modern data like text messages, chat, geolocation, social media, financial transactions and every logged activity on a device, web application or computer, ingesting all types of data and displaying it as one would see it on a mobile device.

Finalists:

• BARBRI, Inc.
• Fulcrum GT – RAPIDx
• UniCourt
• Western Alliance Bank Digital Disbursements

Championing Diversity in Tech (Individual): Catherine Krow, BigHand

After founding a ground-breaking cost-analytics company, Catherine Krow now oversees DEI success at her current employer, implementing the data & cost analytics platform they designed to help law firms transform legal billing data into DEI success and find more equitable work allocation.

Finalist:

• Johnathan Hill, Relativity

Data Privacy & Cybersecurity: HaystackID

HaystackID created an AI-enabled platform to identify more than 140 diverse, internationally sensitive data types in order to help their globally dispersed clients classify and handle their delicate data more effectively across hundreds of engagements. Called Protect Analytics AI for Relativity, the solution presents a sensitive data density score to immediately focus on the most sensitive documents within a dataset.

• FTI Consulting
• Winnow

E-Discovery Technology: Relativity

To address complex challenges posed by the exponential growth of short message data, Relativity took a two-pronged approach that involved creating a completely new, platform-agnostic short message file format, along with an accompanying short message solution to bring short message data into an e-discovery platform.

Finalists:

• FTI Technology
• HaystackID
• Page Vault
• UnitedLex

Enabling Access to Justice: Relativity

In 2020, Relativity launched a program dedicated to supporting organizations doing legal work on behalf of globally marginalized communities by offering their product for free and pairing them with law firms or other partners that provide data hosting, project management, support, and training. The initiative is called Justice for Change, and it continues to expand to help more people around the globe.

Finalists:

• Casetext
• Clearbrief and Elder Law & Disability Rights Center
• descrybe.ai
• Reveal

Enabling Hybrid/Remote Work: Maptician

Maptician developed an automated and proprietary internet protocol-based integration that delivers visibility into attorneys' in-office presence to other employees, including location data on specific seat locations on a given day, allowing firm employees to maximize interaction on the days they are in the office, and firms to better understand office needs

Finalist:

• BigHand

Innovating Knowledge Management: eDiscovery Assistant

eDiscovery Assistant incorporated generative AI to meet a long-time request of its users: creating summaries of all 32,000+ decisions in its case law database to give users better, faster insight into cases in order to help meet short briefing deadlines on key discovery issues. 

Finalists:

• DISCO
• UnitedLex
• ZenCase

Innovation in Hiring, Staffing & Recruitment: Baretz+Brunelle – Talent Intelligence & Analytics

Baretz + Brunelle  created an alternative approach to the lateral hiring process that gives law firms access to reports based on open-source and human intelligence on a candidate's true market reputation, as well as a defined metric that better allows firms to make apples-to-apples comparisons of lateral candidates.

Finalists:

• Lateral Hub / Summer Associate Hub
• TRU Staffing Partners, Inc.

Innovations in Contract Technology: Luminance

Luminance worked with a California-based IT service management company to implement its AI-powered contract drafting and negotiation tool for over 50 lawyers spread around the world, increasing productivity and efficiency across the company.

Finalists:

• Evisort
• LexisNexis
• LinkSquares
• Summize

Innovators of the Year (Individual): Jake Heller & Pablo Arredondo, Casetext

Bringing both legal and technical skills to the company they founded more than a decade ago, Jake Heller and Pablo Arredondo set out to implement neural nets and LLMs in a way that would have an actual impact on legal work, biding their time before jumping on the "AI hype train." They've been called a ten-year overnight success story, and Heller has summarized the secret to their success with a quote from Jay-Z: "The genius thing we did was, we didn't give up."

Finalists:

• Tim Parilla, LinkSquares
• Vishal Rajpara, Casepoint
• Basha Rubin & Mirra Levitt, Priori

Legal Operations: Priori

This year, Priori recognized that the legal operations function is more important than ever to the legal department. That's why they opened up their global network of lawyers, law firms and ALSPs to legal operations professionals for the first time. By using and expanding the infrastructure of their marketplace, Priori successfully piloted the ability to offer legal operations projects on their platform before making it a live feature for all users

Finalists:

• Epiq
• Fulcrum GT – RAPIDx
• LexisNexis® CounselLink®
• Thomson Reuters

Litigation Technology: UnitedLex

UnitedLex incorporated pattern-attribution technology in a new digital litigation tool that leverages data and insights across a user's litigation portfolio, allowing them to capture, consolidate, and reuse fact sets and work product across litigation portfolios, identifying patterns and insights from previous decisions to develop data-driven legal strategies.

Finalists:

• Benchly
• LexisNexis Lexis+® Pinpoint
• Lighthouse
• Trellis

M&A and Transaction Innovation: Lexis+ Agreement Analysis

In September 2023, LexisNexis launched an analytics tool that transforms the M&A timeline by leveraging proprietary AI technology to reduce the manual tasks inherent in analyzing, composing, and negotiating legal agreements, focusing first on stock purchase, asset purchase and merger agreements.

Finalist:

• iManage

New Law Company of the Year: New Era ADR

New Era ADR set out to fix a dispute resolution system that was unnecessarily time-consuming and expensive by building a platform that can cut average dispute resolution times from hundreds of days for small claims, or multiple years for multimillion-dollar litigation, to fewer than 100 days.

Finalists:

• Lateral Hub / Summer Associate Hub
• Paxton AI
• Priori

Practice Management Innovation: UniCourt

In March 2023, UniCourt released an API-first suite to automate the capture and delivery of state and federal court data for business development, litigation strategy, experience management, docket management, and other data-centric functions to engage new clients, grow existing engagements, and deliver better litigation outcomes.

Finalists:

• Fulcrum GT
• Lawmatics Conflict Checking
• Society Tech: INform
• ZenCase

Regulatory, Governance and Compliance Technology: Winnow

Winnow developed a platform for financial services professionals to track fast-moving state and federal compliance. In the past year, they enhanced their coverage to include federal and banking coverage, as well as providing re-designed surveys and notifications.

Finalist:

• Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. – VitalLaw®