Slaughter and May’s (S+M) incubator is a little different to others in that they pick a winner at the end of the programme that goes on to co-develop their product more closely with the firm. Yesterday, S+M had its pitch day for its 2nd Collaborate cohort (see list below) and Juralio won following a vote and input from a jury.
Juralio was praised particularly by in-house representatives, who ‘recognised the utility of Juralio, due to its various integrations to accelerate matter management‘.
But what does it do? Below is a short video by the company. But in a nutshell it helps lawyers to plan out and manage an ongoing piece of work, using plenty of very visual design to achieve this.
One of the key aspects is ‘that it cuts down on the reporting burden [during a transaction] as it shows everyone what is going on’. You do this with graphical legal project maps, which can also be turned into templates for reuse on similar matters. The maps can also be shared with other parties. It also has plenty of integrations so it can be easily used with the tech you already have.
And you know what this reminds this site of….? Yep, last year’s Collaborate winner, StructureFlow, (see AL TV walk through here), which also is very visual, in fact totally visual, and also helps lawyers to better manage deals.
In short, what Collaborate seems to favour, on the evidence of two cohorts, is deal management tools that help lawyers with very practical needs.
After hearing the news of the win during the virtual event, an audibly moved Graeme Johnston, CEO, Juralio, (pictured), expressed his delight at winning and praised the quality of the cohort.
Later, in a statement, he said: ‘We’re thrilled to have won but, more importantly, we’ve learned so much from this programme and met some great people – at Slaughter and May, at cohort companies and at the other organisations involved.
‘One thing we’ve particularly appreciated is engaging with people with all sorts of different roles and perspectives across the firm. And the whole thing’s been really well and thoughtfully organised. We’re really looking forward to the next stage. I would sincerely recommend this programme to other early stage tech companies.’
So, there you go.
But what was Collaborate? After all, every incubator seems to be a little different. In this case it is a 16 week programme, where cohort members work with two dedicated S+M mentors; a member of the firm’s Knowledge and Innovation Team, and a practising lawyer from a relevant legal group.
The other members of the second cohort were as below and included several companies that Artificial Lawyer readers will know well:
- Della AI – Della accelerates contract review. Users ask their own questions in their own words to analyse the points that matter to them. Della is used in due diligence and internal audits as well as day-to-day analysis of contracts, leases and other legal documents.
- thedocyard – thedocyard is a deal management and transactional workflow platform which digitises and automates deals by standardising repeatable processes, providing real time status updates, providing virtual data rooms and allowing collaboration between parties.
- Immediation – Immediation is a confidential online dispute resolution platform, providing advanced hearing and mediation technology to courts, and an alternative fixed-fee, easy, secure and highly efficient method of resolving disputes outside court.
- Lexical Labs – The Lexical Labs system is designed to review documents, identify problems or negotiation points and provide solutions, by combining advanced technology and embedded expertise.
- Office & Dragons – Office & Dragons is a document automation startup on a mission to make documenting transactions simple, reliable and fast. It empowers lawyers to transform documents from a mess of static text into dynamic representations of data.
Congrats to Juralio on the win, and to S+M for running Collaborate for a second year. That was a very high quality cohort, so congrats also to all involved.