Top Spots at ABA TECHSHOW 2023 Startup Alley
For the past seven years, with the help of attorney and journalist Bob Ambrogi of LawSites, the ABA TECHSHOW has kicked off with a startup pitch competition. New and recent products emerging in the legal vertical submit an application. The applications are then whittled down by a panel of judges to a manageable 40 and then put up for a public vote. Then the top 15 are invited to give a 3-minute pitch to the TECHSHOW attendees. Here are this year’s winners.
Universal Migrator (First Place)
Universal Migrator simplifies moving data between law practice management applications. Dozens of applications. Need to move from Time Slips to Cosmolex? Time Matters to Clio Manage? Network folders to NetDocuments? Universal Migrator consultant tools can help move your data from one application to another, whether it is on premise or in the cloud. The migration tools are designed to help consultants move data from one system to another, “extracting, querying, and transferring practice management data”. It focuses on mass transfer of data and requires a knowledge of SQL queries.
Easy Document Backup is another product from Universal Migrator that lets office staff back up documents from document or practice management applications (like NetDocuments and Clio) to cloud or on-premise file storage (like OneDrive or a network drive). If you have a “large” number of files you can get help from Universal Migrator consultants. With Easy Document Imports you can also move files from network folders or online file storage to a legal document or practice management applications. The cost is based on how many matters you are moving.
With Universal Migrator you can also use the Extractors and Injectors to pull data out from dozens of legal and business applications (Drobox, Goldmine, Outlook) and move them into a few select products including Clio, MyCase, Smokeball, ActionStep, Centerbase, Litify, Lawmatics, NetDocuments, and Soluno.
Universal Migrator was founded by Tony Valenti, who also created FasterLaw suite for Clio and Managed.com (subsequently sold), in 2021.
DecisionVault (Second Place)
Coming in second in the voting was DecisionVault, a product that helps with client intake and then export or synchronize the information to your practice management system or another repository. It functions as a client portal to gather information, share documents, and intake financial/asset information. It works seamlessly on mobile or desktop.
Law firms can customize the intake forms, adding whatever fields they need to capture and move the data to draft platforms like WealthCounsel, document automation tools like Gavel (f/k/a Documate), to practice management applications like PracticePanther or Clio, payment portals, and more.
Developed by Wouter IJgosse at the beginning of 2020 for his wife, an estate planning attorney, this simple tool is greater than the sum of its parts. At $83 per month for up to 20 matters without a per seat license (unlimited users), the reduction in re-keying data and the ability to leverage a secure way to collect information from clients is an easy ROI.
Fidu (Third Place)
Finally, at number three, comes Kim Bennett’s Fidu. Kim Bennett co-founded the platform after developing a subscription legal service model as an alternative to hourly billing. The platform provides the tools that help with efficient and automated workflows, so that the subscription model is profitable.
For $99 per month (2 users) there are tools for clients and the firm. On the client facing side there is a portal with a dashboard, custom domain, automations and integrations, secure messaging, a client resource library, and more. For the firm there are automated workflows, document sharing, integrations, and document generation.
The purpose of Fidu is to make it easy for firms to scale their businesses and give clients a predictable billing model.
These three products solve problems that are often at issue in law firms. Many of the other products and services seen in the top 15 at Startup Alley at ABA TECHSHOW deserve a look, with tools to help with citation generation, transcription services, contract management, and products to help manage case and financial data.