- Homegrown AI-powered chronology startup from Sydney takes top prize
- Female-founded Kiwi startup wins People's Choice Award
Hosted virtually on Thursday 24 October, the 2024 Legal Tech Pitch Night was delivered by the LawTech Hub by Lander & Rogers — the first program of its kind in Australia that brings together lawyers and entrepreneurs to design and build transformative legal technology.
Partners included the country's premier community for information sharing, collaboration and building the presence of Australian legal technology on the global stage, the Australian Legal Technology Association (ALTA); the venture capital firm backing the ambitious Australian and Kiwi founders building iconic technology companies, Airtree; and two successful LawTech Hub alumni: Legal Ready, who has built next-generation legal solutions including eBrief Ready and Disclosure Ready; and Legal Tech Helper, who helps law firms, community legal centres, not-for-profit organisations, and government agencies to re-imagine the way online legal information is presented.
Applications to pitch were received from around the world and ultimately 10 startups were selected to present their solutions in a fast-paced 90-second initial round to persuade the judges to advance them to round two.
All-star judging panel
The 10 selected startups came from across Australia, the US, and the UK: AI & Partners, AI Legal Assistant, Case Chronology, Dispute Buddy, Habeas, JurisTechne, Lawme, Lext, Mary Technology, and Vici by OCRT Consulting.
Three finalists progressed to round two and had three minutes to dive deeper into their legal tech solutions. Round two was followed by challenging questions from the judging panel, made up of Michelle Bey, chief innovation officer and transformation lead at Lander & Rogers; Andrew McDuff, board member at ALTA; James Cameron, partner at Airtree; Stephen Foley, founder and executive director of Legal Ready; and Samantha Lovrich, CEO and co-founder of Legal Tech Helper.
And the winner is…
Sydney, Australia-based chronology startup, Mary Technology, who is currently in the 2024 LawTech Hub, won first prize. Daniel Lord-Doyle, the co-founder and CEO who represented the startup said, "Our goal is simple: to remove the time and complexity out of drafting and reviewing chronologies. With Mary, you can simply upload or sync your case documents, and our software will instantly identify key events and organise them into an easy-to-navigate timeline."
Mr Lord-Doyle added, "Based on feedback from our existing paying customers, what used to take 10 to 20 hours of tedious document review is now being reduced by up to 75 to 90% in just three and a half months since we launched, and we've onboarded 17 paying firms including three of Australia's largest law firms."
2024 judge Michelle Bey, chief innovation officer and transformation lead at Lander & Rogers, said, "Mary Technology has made great strides since first coming on our radar at the 2023 pitch event. I appreciate that Daniel showed a demo of how easy Mary Technology is to use as opposed to a traditional pitch deck. The innovative approach resonated with me and the global audience, bringing everyone into the inner workings of the platform. Congratulations to Daniel and the entire Mary team on the well-deserved win."
Runners-up and People's Choice Award
Mount Maunganui, New Zealand-based startup Dispute Buddy, represented by founder Jenny Rudd, was not only selected by the judging panel as first runner-up, but was chosen by the audience as the People's Choice Award winner.
Dispute Buddy, which is currently in the Techstars program, was launched 18 months ago on the back of her own experience. Ms Rudd said, "I made an emergency application to family court to make my children safe. My lawyer said, 'send me all the texts and messages between you and your ex-husband over the last few years so that I can prepare your affidavit'. I was horrified to realise that the responsibility to provide the most compelling evidence fell to the person with the least experience. I spent 40 hours trawling through and trying to guess what messages would help build my case. I relived the trauma."
Dispute Buddy "collects text messages and emails in matters where they're used as evidence. [The platform] extracts the relevant messages from any device without the user having to search through to find them."
Following Ms Rudd's pitch, Airtree partner and judge, James Cameron said, "It's always good to hear founders who are solving problems they have faced themselves. It gives a real authenticity and a connection with the problem, which is really important."
Straddling Canberra and Brisbane in Australia and represented by business development manager Brittany Klein, Vici by OCRT Consulting, was named the evening's second runner-up.
Vici is also a member of the 2024 LawTech Hub cohort and Ms Klein said, "we built tools to find that needle in the haystack. What if the real value isn't in finding keywords or dates and documents, but in understanding how these documents were all connected? Vici helps intelligence analysts connect the dots and is now revolutionising how legal teams uncover game-changing insights in their cases, transforming everything from discovery to knowledge management.
"Best of all, we believe this kind of innovation shouldn't be reserved for the biggest firms. We've made it accessible to all of those ready to transform how they work with their data.
"Vici processes over 200 file formats from emails, audio files, and the entire Microsoft Office suite in seconds. Recognising that we all absorb information differently, Vici visualises data in multiple ways where users can see timelines, maps and a web of relationships faster than you can say billable hours. We're transforming mountains of documents into fountains of insight. We're redefining what's possible, and maybe, just maybe, making document review something that people actually look forward to."
Special guest joins pitch event from Bangladesh
2023 Legal Tech Pitch Night winner: Dhaka, Bangladesh-based Tasnuva Shelley, founder and CEO of Legalized, joined the virtual event as the special guest during the first round of judging.
Ms Shelley said since winning last year, "There have been a lot of changes and challenges, but mostly positive. I love how everybody is trying to utilise artificial intelligence in solving legal problems. I mean, a year ago AI was not really in the legal tech field, but now it is. That's wonderful to see."
Hosted by Courtney Blackman, head of partnerships at Lander & Rogers and director of the LawTech Hub, the 2024 Legal Tech Pitch Night was attended by an international audience of law firms, VCs, startups and scaleups, government, and peak legal industry bodies.
