Consolidation is an inevitable part of doing business. And while no industry is immune to it, legal tech seems to be the opposite of late. 

The latest major legal tech M&A news came out of Litera last week with the acquisition of mass document drafting and editing platform Office & Dragons. Of course, Litera is no stranger to acquisitions, with a history of being one of the companies most willing to make strategic moves to expand its portfolio of offerings to meet law firm needs. Despite its prolific activity in this area, though, the move is part of a larger trend that’s significantly reshaping the legal tech landscape. 

Legaltech Hub recently relaunched two features that have existed on our platform since 2020: Consolidations and Graveyard data. Consolidations tracks the M&A activity of legal tech companies, while Graveyard is exactly what it sounds like—a list of legal tech companies that no longer exist for other reasons. 

According to our Consolidations data, with Litera’s acquisition of Office & Dragons, there have been over 20 major legal tech acquisitions or mergers reported in 2024 alone (so far—the year isn’t over, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more to come). 

So, what makes legal tech so susceptible to M&A activity these days? I have a few theories. 

1. As I said last week, legal tech is having a moment. It’s not only catching the attention of investors who historically had little activity in our vertical, it’s caught the eye of enterprise tech companies as well. Two prime examples from 2024: Docusign’s acquisition of Lexion and Workday’s acquisition of Evisort. 

2. There seem to be more startups than ever in the legal tech space, an observation that’s been made repeatedly in exhibit halls of recent legal tech conferences across the globe. With multiple companies providing similar products and services, it seems inevitable that some won’t last in their current form—whether due to consolidation or competition. 

3. Integrations have become the norm in legal tech—users want, and even expect, a seamless experience. That means more providers are working together, which creates more opportunities to discover compatibility and, in turn, more potential consolidation targets.  

4. Many of the larger legal tech players are continually looking for new ways to keep their customers happy, and often that means offering new functionalities to keep up with perceived competitors. In many instances, acquiring point solution providers is the easiest way to incorporate those new capabilities. 

On the last point, there’s been some recent momentum on the part of users toward investing in point solutions and away from platform approaches. How that trend will play out and how it might impact consolidations in legal tech remains to be seen. 

While the consolidation boom in legal tech likely won’t last forever, there’s no reason to expect a sudden stop to it in the new year. 

To all the startups out there striving for a successful exit, I wish you the best. 

What I’m Watching: 

Even more multi-model: Thomson Reuters is expanding its multi-model product strategy by testing a custom LLM created by the OpenAI and CoCounsel teams and built on the OpenAI o1-mini model. The custom model, currently in a proof-of-concept phase and not yet generally available, is being tested on the CoCounsel platform to evaluate its advanced “chain of thought” reasoning skills. 

Show me the money, Part 1: AI-powered legal fact intelligence platform Wexler announced a $1.4 million pre-seed funding round led by Myriad Venture Partners, with support from Entrepreneur First, and prominent angel investors at ComplyAdvantage, Moonpig, Tractable, and CreditKudos. The funding is reportedly being used for major enhancements aimed at driving law firm adoption. 

Show me the money, Part 2: Document automation provider Clarilis launched an Early-Stage Investment Suite of automated documents for UK venture capital transactions. The suite incorporates model forms from BVCA (the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association), as well as market-standard automated ancillary precedents and forms from UK-based law firm Addleshaw Goddard. 

Power moves: Litera announced that Eric Friedman, the former Chief Executive of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom who oversaw the firm’s growth and innovation from 2009 to 2024, is joining the company’s Board of Directors effective January 2025. The appointment comes just weeks after Avaneesh Marwaha resumed his role as Litera’s CEO. 

YourHonorGPT: Courts in Buenos Aires have started using ChatGPT to draft legal rulings, including 20 legal sentences to date. The use of ChatGPT replaces a highly successful AI-powered system called PROMETEA that was implemented in 2017 to automate judicial tasks, expedite proceedings, predict outcomes, and more. 

Click at your own risk: Techy corners of the internet have been abuzz this past week over a new app called Death Clock, which purports to use AI to predict the exact date of a user’s death and offer tips for lengthening that timeline. In the name of science, I tried it out—apparently, I will live to the ripe old age of 84 (or 98 “with better habits”), so I’ve got that going for me. If you prefer an ignorance-is-bliss approach, I fully respect that.