Clio Acquires vLex for $1B in Legal Tech’s AI Data Arms Race
The legal industry saw another major milestone in its AI transformation journey this week as Clio, a legal practice management company, announced its acquisition of AI-powered legal research platform vLex for $1 billion in cash and stock. The deal promises to bring together technologies spanning the management of law firms and the practice of law into a single, unified platform.
“Through this acquisition we are laying the foundation for the first and only cloud-based, AI-powered platform that seamlessly connects the business and practice of law,” Clio’s CEO and Founder Jack Newton said in a blog post announcing the acquisition. “It’s a moment that reflects not only the scale of what we’re building, but the scale of what’s possible and represents a bold step toward building a new category of legal technology.”
The scale of the deal is reflected not only in dollars, but in the reach of the two companies’ systems. Clio’s practice management software is used by over 200,000 law firms worldwide; vLex’s global legal intelligence platform, known for its built-in AI assistant Vincent and propriety database including more than a billion legal documents, serves more than 2.8 million registered users.
“With the most comprehensive global legal library and firm insights, Clio and vLex are uniquely positioned to reshape the mechanics of legal work and redefine the trajectory of the profession,” CEO and Co-Founder of vLex Lluis Faus said.
The acquisition announcement comes rapidly after another strategic alliance recently announced between Harvey AI, which offers a ChatGPT-based AI platform for tasks like legal research and contract analysis, and LexisNexis, which is one of the main competitors to vLex. In that case, the two companies announced that LexisNexis database and AI capabilities would be integrated into Harvey to create new workflows and “a powerful new experience for Harvey customers.”
Clio’s acquisition of vLex is subject to standard regulatory approvals. More information about the capabilities the combined platforms may offer is planned to be shared at ClioCon this October in Boston.
The TechArena Take
These partnerships reflect the legal industry’s rapid transformation as AI reshapes how lawyers conduct research, draft documents, and manage cases and their practices. They also point to an urgent necessity: an arms race for the best data in the domain.
Great data is crucial to building the best AI models and platforms. In an industry where model performance can be the difference between freedom and liberty, or which way a billion-dollar judgment goes, putting a price tag on “the best” is an expensive prospect.
Two of the three dominant sources of data that currently exist — vLex, LexisNexis, and a legal database owned by Thomson Reuters — have now been claimed. What remains to be seen is what will happen to the legal tech service providers who haven’t been able to get in on this gold rush.
We’ll be watching to see where Thomson Reuters lands. We’ll also be watching for consolidation waves in other industries with similarly concentrated, high-value data repositories. We suspect the scrambles to control the information that powers AI systems have only just begun.
The legal industry saw another major milestone in its AI transformation journey this week as Clio, a legal practice management company, announced its acquisition of AI-powered legal research platform vLex for $1 billion in cash and stock. The deal promises to bring together technologies spanning the management of law firms and the practice of law into a single, unified platform.
“Through this acquisition we are laying the foundation for the first and only cloud-based, AI-powered platform that seamlessly connects the business and practice of law,” Clio’s CEO and Founder Jack Newton said in a blog post announcing the acquisition. “It’s a moment that reflects not only the scale of what we’re building, but the scale of what’s possible and represents a bold step toward building a new category of legal technology.”
The scale of the deal is reflected not only in dollars, but in the reach of the two companies’ systems. Clio’s practice management software is used by over 200,000 law firms worldwide; vLex’s global legal intelligence platform, known for its built-in AI assistant Vincent and propriety database including more than a billion legal documents, serves more than 2.8 million registered users.
“With the most comprehensive global legal library and firm insights, Clio and vLex are uniquely positioned to reshape the mechanics of legal work and redefine the trajectory of the profession,” CEO and Co-Founder of vLex Lluis Faus said.
The acquisition announcement comes rapidly after another strategic alliance recently announced between Harvey AI, which offers a ChatGPT-based AI platform for tasks like legal research and contract analysis, and LexisNexis, which is one of the main competitors to vLex. In that case, the two companies announced that LexisNexis database and AI capabilities would be integrated into Harvey to create new workflows and “a powerful new experience for Harvey customers.”
Clio’s acquisition of vLex is subject to standard regulatory approvals. More information about the capabilities the combined platforms may offer is planned to be shared at ClioCon this October in Boston.
The TechArena Take
These partnerships reflect the legal industry’s rapid transformation as AI reshapes how lawyers conduct research, draft documents, and manage cases and their practices. They also point to an urgent necessity: an arms race for the best data in the domain.
Great data is crucial to building the best AI models and platforms. In an industry where model performance can be the difference between freedom and liberty, or which way a billion-dollar judgment goes, putting a price tag on “the best” is an expensive prospect.
Two of the three dominant sources of data that currently exist — vLex, LexisNexis, and a legal database owned by Thomson Reuters — have now been claimed. What remains to be seen is what will happen to the legal tech service providers who haven’t been able to get in on this gold rush.
We’ll be watching to see where Thomson Reuters lands. We’ll also be watching for consolidation waves in other industries with similarly concentrated, high-value data repositories. We suspect the scrambles to control the information that powers AI systems have only just begun.
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