LegalTech Lockdown Vol III, Feat. LawDroid, ContractProbe, Luminance +

‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee,’ wrote John Donne (on the left, above) in one of his most famous passages, (Meditation XVII – 1624).

Which rings a bell…….it’s time for Legal Tech Lockdown Volume III. There are plenty of businesses out there still eager to share with you their special offerings and news about how they’re helping clients in these peculiar times. Here is a new selection of some of the things happening at the moment.

LawDroid is offering its Lead Capture Bot free for 6 Months

To help law firms work remotely during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, LawDroid is extending a special offer to help automate your law firm to remotely capture leads 24/7/365.

Features include:

  • Automated lead capture
  • Working for you 24/7/365
  • Email and text notifications
  • Integration with Clio and most CRMs

The offer is a 6 month free trial period ($300 value) and free set up ($300 value) on their popular lead capture chatbot. LawDroid offers predictable and affordable flat fee pricing of only $50 per month after the trial period expires.

They hope this helps lawyers during this trying time and wish everyone the best of good health.

Here’s the link: https://lawdroid.com/covid-19-special-offer/

Use of ContractProbe to Assist on Drafting for the Covid-19 Pandemic

An announcement by ContractProbe:

‘Our team has recently researched the use of force majeure clauses in contracts filed with the SEC in the USA. They reviewed 9,164 material contracts filed in the six months to 31 March 2020. In the three months prior to 31 December 2019 – when Western lawyers were blissfully unaware of COVID- 19 – only 9% of force majeure clauses in those contracts would clearly have covered the type of situation we now face.

By the end of January, lawyers were waking up to the issue and around 20% of force majeure clauses would explicitly cover the circumstances. As of the end of February, the percentage coverage had increased to 26% and, as of 31 March, the percentage coverage has increased to 40%.

So, with a slight delay, many lawyers seem to have appreciated the issue and are now dealing with it in their drafting. Their take up rate might even resemble the type of exponential curve with which we’re all now depressingly familiar.

Though a significant increase, the figure of 40%, raises the question of whether the issue still needs to be addressed in the remaining 60% of force majeure clauses. If a contract being signed today includes a force majeure clause, shouldn’t the clause deal expressly with the consequences of COVID-19? In some cases, the lawyers concerned might be satisfied that general terms such as “natural disasters” or “acts of God” are sufficient, and in due course this might be a matter for discussion with their insurers! In other cases, it might be as part of deliberate risk allocation, although it would seem unusual for parties to have agreed to excuse failures due to force majeure yet, in the present climate, still want a party to perform despite a pandemic.

So, how does this relate to Artificial Lawyer? The ContractProbe contract review tool has always checked for the presence of force majeure clauses and given information on their content and significance. In light of the current crisis, we’ve now broken those review rules out into a separate rule set (a Covid-19 scan) so that users can get a very targeted review on this particular issue.

As a service to the readers, we’ve decided to offer them complimentary use of our tool, to review 10 of their contracts to get information on whether the contract would protect them against a problem caused by Covid-19. To take advantage of this no strings attached offer, they just need to email us at info@contractprobe.com with the words ‘Artificial Lawyer’ in the subject line. We’ll send them their no obligations password to take one of their contracts through its paces.

We hope this offer results in more contracts clearly covering our current unique circumstances. For more information, contact liz@contractprobe.com.

vTestify Donates to Legal Tech For Change Program

The team over at vTestify, a virtual deposition platform, is among seven initial donors in the Legal Tech for Change program providing free technology products and services to legal aid offices in a partnership between the American Bar Association and the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). vTestify also is currently helping LSC in various access-to-justice initiatives during this time.

For the legal aid community (legal aid groups and for pro bono matters), vTestify, is providing their platform for free specifically around client onboarding, witness prep, document review and discounted pricing for depositions.

vTestify’s platform helps keep depositions, mediations, and other pre-trial testimony on track. It enables court reporters, digital reporters, and videographers to extend their reach. The secure, easy-to-use scalable platform facilitates the remote capture of testimony while also preserving business continuity.

Moore Legal Technology Offers Up Handy Guides For The Lockdown

From the folk at Moore Legal Technology here’s two handy guides for law firms:

Luminance Wants To Tell You It’s Doing A Lot Of Work Related To Covid-19

  • Identification of force majeure – Global Top 10 law firm Dentons UK has advised that it is using Luminance to identify force majeure clauses within contracts, allowing them to determine whether the Covid-19 outbreak constitutes a force majeure event.
  • Risk mitigation – Italian law firm Portolano Cavallo has had an influx of requests from clients who want to understand their contractual rights and obligations in light of the coronavirus. And they’ve been using Luminance too, the company said.
  • Collaborative project management while remote working – Scottish law firm, Burness Paull, was using Luminance’s eDiscovery platform for a DSAR (Data Subject Access Request) when midway through the review, social distancing measures were put in place. Luminance is primarily deployed on the cloud, therefore allowing the legal team to continue the review with little disruption.
  • And there’s more, but you get the picture.

Tolley launches free COVID-19 toolkit for navigating complex tax issues

The tax experts at Tolley have launched a free online toolkit designed to help firms navigate the measures to support businesses and individuals in response to COVID-19.

The toolkit details the tax issues relevant to your clients and covers employment tax, personal tax, business tax and VAT issues, as well as support initiatives such as grants, loans and business rates reliefs.

That’s all folks.

Will there be a LegalTech Lockdown Volume IV…? Much depends on how long this pandemic lasts. If it does, no doubt there will be more Volumes to come. If you have something you’d like to share, please let Artificial Lawyer know.