In my prior post, Online Legal Services List Updated, I reported that in the last 18 months, there has been little apparent overall activity in online legal services. Updating the list of online legal services, however, did reveal some trends and tidbits.  

A Caveat. Please note that I base all information here on past and recent Web sites visits. Given the possibility that I missed pages, my comments my not be entirely accurate. Please let me know if you spot errors.

Online Compliance Training. Online compliance training seems to be an active area. Four firms – Blake Dawson (Australia), Clifford Chance (UK), Eversheds (UK), and Mallesons (Australia) – have added online compliance training in the last 18 months. This is in addition to several other firms and private companies already listed as offering compliance training. (Note that I “de-listed” Proskauer and Orrick Herrington; I had included them based on WeComply press releases saying the firms were offering online training but now find no current references on the two firms’ websites.)

Trademark Monitoring. Another area seems to be trademark and domain name monitoring. Some firms had already offered it and a couple of more have added these services in the last 18 months.

Document Assembly. I “de-listed” three firms – Ballard Spahr, Dykema Gossett, and Strook – that, according to e-Cogniata press releases, had purchased “e-Cognita’s Streamloaner(TM) Closing Management software” to automate commercial real estate finance practice.” These firms do not reference this product on their web sites and the e-Cognita web site is no longer active. On the related, more general topic of document assembly, I have read articles and heard stories suggesting an increase in the uptake of document assembly software among large law firms. If that is true, it seems the firms are using the software internally rather than exposing document creation services to clients. Please let me know if you know of client-facing document assembly services.

Contract Management. I have also “de-listed” companies that offer contract management software (hosted or packaged). I decided these are not really online legal services. I do, however, list contract management as a category on the list of useful software I maintain, which is distinct from online legal services.