Updated again: Our CodeX crew had a great (and very productive) time at the always-gigantic  Legaltech New York 2016!  We had three days of demo’ing startups at the CodeX Pavilion, and two lively and highly interactive ‘Dolphin Tank’ presentations. And on top of all of that, for the first time in years, there was no snow or ice during the show! Mother Nature graciously waited until this morning to beautifully cover New York City with a fresh, beautiful white coat.

First, thanks to our  ALM partner—whose team graciously kept CodeX front and center at LTNY 2016. A special shout out to Henry Dicker, Vice President of Global Events at ALM, and his excellent team, who were always quick to address our questions and almost-instantly solve any problems. 

We had steady visitors to our CodeX Pavilion, which featured SmartContract, ArbiClaims, Concord, Casetext, Legal.io, ClearstoneIP, Legal Robot and Lit IQ. The environment was comfortable and casual, allowing for interaction with the technology and the people. The area was accessible but not over-crowded like some of the other areas, making it especially conducive to nuanced conversations.

On Thursday, we held two jam-packed “Legal Disruption Lighting Rounds,” aka, the “Dolphin Tank.” (We decided that we were all too nice to be Sharks : )

Each speaker had five minutes to speak, then three judges offered feedback and asked questions, followed by questions from the audience.

Unfortunately, our leader, executive director Roland Vogl, who was scheduled to moderate the two Thursday session, lost his voice by the end of day 2  (like so many others)! So we quickly developed a plan B.

Oliver Goodenough, professor and director, Center for Legal Innovation, at Vermont Law School and Director—and an affiliated scholar at CodeX (who spent a semester at CodeX in 2015) graciously jumped in to moderate the first session.

Speakers:
• ArbiClaims, an online small claims court alternative. Stephen Kane.
• Legal Robot, provides automated legal document review using machine learning. Dan Rubins.
• ClearstoneIP, a new platform for conducting product clearance, freedom to operate and patent infringement-based analyses. Gabe Sukman.
• Casetext, a legal research company where lawyers can read cases, statutes, and regulations that are annotated by the entire legal community. Jake Heller.
• Hire An Esquire, online workforce for flexible, temporary and permanent attorneys. Jules Miller.

Judges were advisor Ralph Baxter, Global Director Pangea3 Joseph Borstein  and moi. The presentations were terrific (and there was only one PowerPoint failure—Legal Robot) and the dialog between the presenters and the judges and audience were intriguing and educational!

For the second session, Baxter took over the moderator mic, and  we recruited Jason R. Baron, of counsel at Drinker Biddle & Reath, to join the judges table.  Baron, previously Director of Litigation for the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, brought both a Big Law and government perspective to the conversation. (I think we can now say he is officially baptized into CodeX community! : )

Afternoon demos included:
• Smart Contract  provides programmable contracts that are secured in the blockchain as self-executing contractual states. Sergey Nazarov.
•  Lit IQ uses computational linguistics to detect drafting oversights ahead of time, limiting risk and the potential for disputes. Shipra Dingare.
• Concord  is a free cloud-based contract lifecycle management tool that provides a new way to create, negotiate, sign, and manage contracts. Matt Lhoumeau.
• Frag-einen-Anwalt (frag-einen-anwalt.de) and 123recht.net. Michael Friedmann.
• Legal.io provides lawyers with new ways to engage with clients more effectively. Tony Lai.

After the show, Roland told us that it was a blessing in disguise that he couldn’t moderate, allowing him to “experience your the presentations from the audience’s perspective, which allowed me to better understand [the presentor’s] respective trail-blazing missions.”

Congratulations (and thanks) to Roland Vogl for orchestrating a fantastic CodeX show—and to all the presenters and attendees. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to participate!

Now we get to gear up for CodeX FutureLaw 2016 in May, which will arrive faster than we think! : )

See also:
• “Disrupting the Legalsphere: 9 Startups Pitch at Legaltech New York,” by Mike Susong, Lawtech News. (Registration required.)