Congrats to our pals at LegalX in Toronto!  Thomson Reuters has just announced “a collaborative agreement with MaRS Discovery District in Toronto, one of the world’s largest urban innovation hubs. The new alliance aims to create bridges between the start-up community, legal practitioners and the business world to foster innovations that advance the legal industry.”

TR will sponsor MaRS Discovery District’s LegalX Cluster, “which connects technology, high-growth ventures and the legal industry. The Legal Executive Institute and other Thomson Reuters businesses will facilitate events and other initiatives connecting LegalX communities with law firm leaders to build relationships, as well as encourage partnerships and [innovation],” the company said in its press release.

Several CodeXistas are also active with LegalX, see “CodeX & LegalX Cross Borders.” Aron Solomon is the innovation lead for LegalX and senior advisor for MaRS; Jason Moyse is consulting innovation lead at MaRS and manager, legal business solutions, at Elevate Services.

Last June,  the LegalX launch party included five five speakers who are active in our CodeX community: Dan Lear, director of industry relations at Avvo Inc.;  Sanjay Kamlani, executive chairman of Matterhorn Transactions and founder of Pangea3 (sold to Thomson Reuters);  Noah Waisberg, CEO and co-founder of Kira Inc.;  Beagle’s “Top Dog” and founder Cian O’Sullivan;  et moi.

The new agreement is TR’s second dive into Canada in the last couple  weeks: In November, the company announced “a similar relationship in the emerging Toronto-Waterloo tech corridor for the recently formed Thomson Reuters LabsTM at Communitech in Waterloo.”

“We want to accelerate the dialogue between lawyers, technologists, designers, engineers and entrepreneurs to drive change,” said Neil Sternthal, managing director for Canada, Australia and New Zealand, for the legal business of Thomson Reuters. “The LegalX Cluster uniquely connects these groups. We envision that this collaboration will help industry, startups, lawyers, government and academia exchange knowledge, ideas and resources to jointly develop the future of the legal industry.

“This is another important step in advancing our own pace of innovation in solving industry problems and developing new products to help practitioners be more productive and the legal system function more effectively,” added Sternthal. “We are continually looking for new ways to engage and partner with innovative thinkers and problem solvers wherever in the world they may be found.”

“The MaRS community is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs bring breakthrough ideas to market, build innovative companies and scale globally,” said Salim Teja, executive vice president of Venture Services, MaRS Discovery District. “Partnerships with innovative corporations are key, and we look forward to working with Thomson Reuters to bring new perspectives and collaborate with our community to help drive new ideas, new solutions and new enterprises.”

Monica Bay is a Fellow at CodeX and a freelance journalist for Bloomberg BNA Big Law Business. She is a member of the California bar. @MonicaBay. Email: mbay@codex.stanford.edu.