Here is the latest “Almost Raw” press release, of probable interest to the CodeX community. The press releases are slightly edited for length and overly self-serving statements, and to remove “solution” and “revolutionary” which are banned because they are so over-used that they are meaningless. —Monica Bay

LexisNexis Completes Its First Accelerator Program for Legal Technology Startups, and Issues Call for a New Group of Applicants

Inaugural Participants – Visabot, TagDox, Separate.us, Ping and JuriLytics – Share Unanimously Enthusiastic Feedback

Menlo Park, CA – Aug. 24, 2017 — After the successful completion of its first 12-week accelerator program for startups in the legal technology space, LexisNexis today announced a call for a new round of applicants interested in participating in its second legal accelerator program. The new program begins on September 15, 2017. If selected, participating startups will receive hands-on mentoring, enjoy access to cutting-edge tools, technologies and data, and will have the use a workspace within an award-winning legal tech startup in the Silicon Valley for up to three months for three people. Interested companies should email a one pager to aoh@lexmachina.com

Based in the Menlo Park, CA offices of Lex Machina, the accelerator program was conceived as a vehicle to give startups a leg up in the rapidly expanding legal tech industry, and was launched in April 2017. Participants in the accelerator program receive the guidance of mentors with deep expertise in the legal, technology and startup domains, and benefit from … LexisNexis and Lex Machina. Once again, the program will be led by Lex Machina CEO Josh Becker and LexisNexis’ Chief Product Officer, Jamie Buckley, Vice President of US Product Management, Jeff Pfeifer, Chief Technology Officer, Jeff Reihl, and Lex Machina Chief Evangelist, Owen Byrd.

Topics covered in the curriculum include technology and product development; running an agile product development organization; building a strong company culture; selling to legal departments and law firms; leveraging legal data; and best practices in customer success, marketing and fundraising. Participants in the program gain access to a … collection of enriched legal data and … tools and technologies from LexisNexis, and are able to leverage the company’s established relationships with Stanford University and other leading Bay Area schools, businesses, venture capital professionals and influencers to grow their companies.

Quotes from the first series participants:

“The accelerator did exactly what the term says: it accelerated our efforts towards finding a product-market fit. LexisNexis was a true collaborator with us during the entire process. Best of all, the program gave us access to the top minds in this area from which we will be able to launch new partnerships and gain access to resources we would not have gotten otherwise.” – Amit Lakhani, Co-founder and President, JuriLytics.

“The LexisNexis accelerator program was unique because of their deep knowledge of the law. Through the program, we were able to learn new ways to market specifically to the legal industry. It was also very helpful to us to learn best practices from people with a wealth of experience in sales and other disciplines.” – Eli Luzac, CEO, TagDox

“Learning how to start a legal tech company from inside a legal tech company is the only way to do it. The speakers have all been incredibly gracious with their time and insight. We really couldn’t be happier with what we got out of the experience.” – Ryan Alshak, CEO, Ping

“The accelerator has been instrumental in providing useful guidance that is industry-specific to legal. We got to know who the target audience is, and now we know who exactly to sell to. The team at Lex Machina is first-rate and they really care about helping us to succeed.” – Sandro Tuzzo, Founder and CEO, Separate.us.

“The LexisNexis accelerator program gave us hands-on practical advice to accelerate our growth in the legal market. Thanks to access and advice from executives at LexisNexis, we were able to focus our product and sales development to sell to lawyers – our target audience. The program boosted our legal and legal tech network. We also got a better understanding of ways to sell products to law firms.” – Andrey Zinoviev, Co-founder and COO, Visabot.

 

Comments from Josh Becker

“Our vision for the tech accelerator program was to identify some of the best and brightest legal tech startups, contribute to their early success, and then watch as their innovative technologies and vision transform the way law is practiced,” said Josh Becker, CEO of Lex Machina. “After observing the deep engagement and intense collaboration between participants and mentors, I’m pleased to say the program has exceeded expectations so far, and we’re excited to have the opportunity to select a new group of participants in the near future. We look forward to watching these dynamic organizations grow, prosper and make important contributions to the legal industry in the months and years to come.”

 

Un-edited press release.

 

Monica Bay is a Fellow at CodeX and a freelance journalist. She is a member of the California bar. Email: mbay@codex.stanford.edu. Twitter: @MonicaBay.

Cover image: Clipart.com