The 2022 Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards Winners Are Here!

Another Legalweek is in the books, and with that, the second edition (and first in-person ceremony) of ALM’s Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards! These awards celebrated the most innovative achievements of the past year from in-house legal departments, law firms, and the tech vendor and service partner community, culminating in a celebration at Legalweek New York on March 10.

We’ve enjoyed reading about your achievements, and all of our entrants, finalists and winners should be proud about the hard work they’ve put in pushing the law forward. We’re certainly proud to present the 2022 winners, and would like to thank our judges and all those working to present these awards to you.

You’ll also have the opportunity to read more about each of our winners in Q&As over the coming weeks. And we look forward to hosting the 2023 version alongside Legalweek New York at the start of next year. More information about nominations for those awards will be forthcoming later this year, and you can stay up-to-date with notifications via this link. And if you have any questions or suggestions for a category we should cover, drop us a line at [email protected]

Innovator of the Year, In-House

Winner: Elaine Karp, Baxter International

Elaine Karp helped modernize the legal ops function for her Fortune 500 company, streamlining everything from e-billing to contract management and more.

Finalists: 

• Elaine Karp, Baxter International
• Farrah Pepper, Marsh McLennan

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Innovative Legal Department of the Year

Winner: American Bankers Association

The American Bankers Association overhauled its contract management system to great effect: doubling contract volume while decreasing attorney review time by an average of 50%.

Finalists: 

• American Bankers Association
• Icertis
• Instacart
• Johnson & Johnson Services

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Championing Diversity in Tech, In-House

Winner: Megan Lutes, Glowforge

Megan Lutes helped build businesses and diversity pipelines at the same time through serving as the company’s GC and launching Diversity University.

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Innovations in Diversity and Inclusion, In-House

Winner: AbbVie

AbbVie’s five pillars in its Diversity in Law initiative provided a practical way to affect change and accelerate diversity in the legal department.

• AbbVie
• Liberty Mutual, Humans of LSS
• Liberty Mutual, Liberty Legal Academy
• Stripe
• UpWork

Innovative Operations Team of the Year, In-House

Winner: Liberty Mutual, LISA (Legal Intake Support Assistant)

Liberty Mutual transformed the legal support request process with its own self-service solution that self-service reduced the volume of requests by 30%.

Finalists: 

• Dolby Laboratories
• Exelon
• Liberty Mutual, LISA (Legal Intake Support Assistant)
• Liberty Mutual, myLegalReferral
• Sonnedix

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Lifetime Achievement Award, Law Firm

Winner: Kenneth Heaps, Latham & Watkins

As one of the longest tenured CIOs in the legal industry, Kenneth Heaps helped grow his firm from a nine office outfit to a global powerhouse using cutting-edge technology throughout.

Winner: Austin T. Fragomen, Jr., Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy

Austin Fragomen, Jr., helped grow his firm from a U.S. immigration law practice to an international practice with 4,300 employees providing immigration services in more than 170 countries.

Innovator of the Year, Law Firm

Winner: Bryon Bratcher, Reed Smith

Bryon Bratcher was both a model innovator as director of practice solutions for his firm as well as helping revolutionize legal service delivery as the managing director of the firm’s GravityStack tech subsidiary.

• Adam Ruttenberg, Cooley
• David Wang, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
• Timothy W. Levin and Colleen F. Nihill, Morgan Lewis & Bockius
• Bryon Bratcher, Reed Smith

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Innovations in Diversity and Inclusion, Law Firm

Winner: Norton Rose Fulbright

Following a year of social injustice in the US and around the world, Norton Rose Fulbright formed a Racial Equity Council and created change for Black lawyers and nonlawyer personnel.

• Akin Gump
• Bracewell LLP, Minute Mentoring
• Bracewell LLP, Madam Policy
• Fernando Koatz, Esq.
• MoginRubin
• Norton Rose Fulbright

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Innovative Operations Team of the Year, Law Firm

Winner: Morgan Lewis

Morgan Lewis’s knowledge management team helped transform the firm’s entire legal service delivery model through an expansive, multiyear project to enhance the firm’s enterprise knowledge platforms.

Finalists: 

• Berry Appleman & Leiden
• Morgan Lewis
• Reed Smith
• Troutman Pepper

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Innovations in Pro Bono, Law Firm

Winner: Akin Gump

Akin Gump utilized Salesforce’s Quip to help DACA applicants to complete an immigration questionnaire and upload required documentation using a mobile phone.

Finalists: 

• Akin Gump
• Baker McKenzie
• Eversheds Sutherland/Balanced Justice Project
• Reed Smith

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Startup Firm/Emerging Company Law Firm of the Year

Winner: Latham & Watkins

Spurred on by the pandemic, Latham & Watkins used its lawyers’ knowledge to develop a tool that quickly and accurately answers investment questions while holistically looking at private market portfolios.

Finalists: 

• Cooley
• Latham & Watkins
• Reed Smith
• Wilson Sonsini

Tech-Enabled Litigation Department of the Year

Winner: Morgan Lewis

Morgan Lewis built its own proprietary, custom review management platform, allowing clients and case teams to evaluate the performance of review lawyers and support managing document reviews.

Finalists:

• McDermott Will & Emery
• Morgan Lewis
• Reed Smith

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Lifetime Achievement Award, Vendor

Winner: Scott Berger, Epiq

Scott Berger helped grow the e-discovery managed services model, taking his services arm from less than 20 professionals to more than 225 over the last 10 years, all the while maintaining strong relationships and leading and shaping new best practices for the industry.

Winner: Eric Elfman, Onit

Eric Elfman is a serial entrepreneur who has founded four companies in the past 25 years, the most recent of which he has grown as CEO to be a major legal tech force with a presence on six continents and more than 10,000 customers

Winner: Bill Johnson, TCDI

Bill Johnson founded his company in 1988, and has guided it through industry transformation to include large-scale litigation case management, e-discovery, computer forensics, and cybersecurity services, always with enthusiasm for his people and the clients that they support.

Championing Diversity in Tech, Vendor

Winner: Julia Helmer, Array

Julia Helmer built upon her own refugee experience to help open pathways for others in helping expand access to legal tech to organizations that might not otherwise be able to afford the high cost.

Finalists: 

• Julia Helmer, Array
• Mirra Levitt, Priori
• Sophie Ross, FTI Technology
• Mary Beth Schmidt, Array
• Shana Simmons, Everlaw
• Alys Williams, Epiq

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Solution

Winner: Caetra, Cyber and Data Security Compliance

In a time of constantly shifting cyber and privacy regulations, Caetra automated the development of legally vetted cybersecurity and data privacy policies and controls to lower enterprise risk.

Finalists:

• Breakwater, DSAR Response
• Caetra, Cyber and Data Security Compliance
• Canopy, Data Breach Response Software
• Compliance, CI Admin
• FTI Technology, Information Governance, Privacy & Security Practice

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Innovators of the Year, Vendor

Winner: Patrice Asimakis, LegalEase Solutions

Patrice Asimakis helps clients innovate anything they need, from on-demand legal services to legal AI contract review to predictive analytics and more.

Finalists:

• Patrice Asimakis, LegalEase Solutions
• Josh Blandi, UniCourt
• Mirra Levitt, Priori
• Michael Pontrelli, Consilio
• Deana Uhl, FTI Technology

Legal Operations Solutions

Winner: Lex Mundi, Equisphere

Lex Mundi was able to create an innovative alternative to the traditional international legal firm model for outsourced legal work.

Finalists: 

• Breakwater Solutions, StoredIQ for Legal
• Epiq, Legal Spend Solutions
• Lex Mundi, Equisphere
• SimpleLegal, SimpleReview
• Priori Legal, Scout

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Litigation & Discovery Solutions

Winner: Everlaw

Everlaw found key evidence in the high-profile Theranos litigation using new methods of metadata searching.

Finalists: 

• Everlaw
• FTI Technology, E-Discovery and Information Governance, Privacy & Security practices
• IPRO, K2 Partnership
• JAMS, Virtual ADR
• Merlin Search Technologies, Integrated Search
• TCDI, Military Spouse Managed Review (MSMR) program

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

New Law Company of the Year

Winner: Clearbrief

Clearbrief tackled the heart of lost attorney time—writing—by putting the power of accurate evidence at their fingertips through natural language processing.

Finalists: 

• Clearbrief
• Epiq
• Priori Legal

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Practice Management Solutions

Winner: XIRA

Xira’s innovative client portal gave attorneys and clients a collaborative, secure, safe space for video conferencing, document management and more – a must during the pandemic.

Finalists: 

• iManage, Knowledge Unlocked
• iManage, Work 10 Platform
• RubyLaw, Content Lifecycle Management (CLM) platform
• XIRA

Read our Q&A with the winner here.

Research & Data Science Solutions

Winner: CaseMetrix

CaseMetrix’s real-time, cloud based legal database of legal settlements helped shine a light on cases that had never previously been systematically compiled.

Read our Q&A with the winner here.