One of Australia’s biggest law firms, Allens, has launched a legal tech accelerator

Allens, the global Australian law firm, has taken the digital transformation of the legal system by the tassels of its silks and is backing seven startups in a new accelerator program called Auctus (Latin for “enriched”.)

The startups, based in four different countries, tackle issues such as document automation, smart contracts and AI-driven knowledge management, in the eight-week virtual program.

Allens has already been working in the legal tech startup space with Allens Accelerate, a legal practice supporting  Australian startups. It works with startups, investors, corporates and government agencies to build startups.

The Auctus – Allens Legal Accelerator received more than 120 applications from legaltech and regtech startups that were whittled down to 15 who pitched their ides to a panel from Allens and Collective Campus before the final seven were chosen.

The founders now work with mentors and experts from Allens on their legal, growth and innovation strategies as well as attending masterclasses, testing and receiving feedback on their products.

Penelope Barr, Allens Head of Legal Product Lab, said the cohort address pressing issues faced by the firm and its clients in transformative ways.

“We are excited by the potential of our first group of startups to not only add to our own legal tech offering, but to meaningfully contribute to the Australian legal landscape more broadly,” she said.

The startups are:

• Avvoka: a next-generation document automation, negotiation and analytics tool for in-house legal, law firms and business teams;
• BuildSort: a smart legal contract platform initially targeting the construction sector;
• Hutly: a smart contract platform that is simplifying contract management with a way for general tenancy agreements to be completed, issued, tracked, and digitally signed in minutes;
• Inpact: an AI-powered enterprise software platform that turns contracts into structured, easily-analysable data to uncover new business insights;
• Summize: a lightweight assistant to the contract lifecycle which creates instant, easy-to-read summaries of uploaded contracts;
• Syntheia: an end-to-end knowledge solution that helps to collect, manage, share and apply knowledge from documents and experts; and
• Wage Buddy: a legal technology platform that simplifies Australian Fair Work Awards by analysing, interpreting and codifying Awards to facilitate automated reasoning.