Incorporación

III. Technological innovation

A. Overview of the most prominent players

The past few years have seen a rise in the number of legaltech companies and acceleration in the adoption of legaltech solutions and services among legal service providers.

However, as compared to other markets, the overall number of legaltech service providers remains relatively small and the technology offered by many startups is usually not very sophisticated.

Some of the key legaltech areas in the Russian market, as well as notable players in these areas include:¹⁴

(1) Document automation management solutions which generate drafts from automated templates

(a) ContractExpress is an intuitive, natural language mark-up solution for Microsoft Word by Thomson Reuters. All configurations can be made by lawyers within Microsoft Word.

(b) TurboContract comprises cloud-based document workflow, template-based document creation tools and allows real-time multi-user document editing.¹⁵ (c) Doc.one offers interactive templates integrated with Microsoft Office 365.¹⁶

(d) Legium is a tool for creating, signing and verification of documents, which is based on blockchain.¹⁷

14 The list is not limited to local technology service providers and includes a number of foreign solutions that are prominent on the local market.

15 TurboContract website <https://turbocontract.ru/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

16 Doc.one website <https://doc.one/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

17 Legium website <https://legium.ru/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

(e) Doczilla,¹⁸ EasyLaw,¹⁹ FreshDoc, and ProstoDocs²⁰ offer databases with ready document templates. Freshdoc has announced its development of a vast user database exceeding 1,400,000 users.²¹

(f) Soica is a Russian product allowing for the digitization of paper documents, the recognition and extraction of data from paper and digitized media, and the inputting of the recognized data into target IT systems.²²

(2) Lawyer search / marketplaces and online legal services which are designed for

obtaining legal advice online or finding information on practicing lawyers, including ratings, reviews and profiles

(a) Marketplaces: Pravoved.ru,²³ LawStock,²⁴ Justiva,²⁵ Yurbee.²⁶

(b) Online legal support: Pravoved.ru, European Legal Service (“ELS”),²⁷ Pravocard,²⁸ Amulex.²⁹

(c) Online legal services (examples):

(i) Online Patent is an online platform for patent and trademark application management.³⁰

(ii) Nalogia is an Internet service for the online preparation and online submission of tax returns and tax refund documents for individuals, with remote support available.³¹

(iii) B-152³²and Legal Box³³offer online-services and assistance in preparing the necessary documents for compliance with Russian and EU data protection laws.

(d) Chatbots and AI offer legal advice and respond to client requests:

18 Doczilla website <https://doczilla.ru/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

19 EasyLaw website http://myeasylaw.ru/ (accessed 05 March 2019). Note that this EasyLaw differs from the EasyLaw earlier mentioned in the Malaysia chapter.

20 Prostodocs website <https://prostodocs.com/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

21 Freshdoc has more than 1,400,000 users.

22 Soica website <https://soica.ru/> (accessed 06 March 2019).

23 Pravoved website <https://pravoved.ru/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

24 LawStock website <https://lawstock.ru/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

25 Justiva website <https://justiva.ru/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

26 YurBee website <https://yurbee.ru/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

27 European Legal Service website <https://els24.com/> (accessed 06 March 2019).

28 Pravocard website <https://pravocard.ru/> (accessed 06 March 2019).

29 Amulex website <https://amulex.ru/> (accessed 06 March 2019).

30 Online Patent website <https://onlinepatent.ru/> (accessed 06 March 2019).

31 Nalogia website <https://www.nalogia.ru/> (accessed 06 March 2019).

32 B-152 website <https://b-152.ru/> (accessed 06 March 2019).

33 Legal Box website <https://legal-box.ru/> (accessed 06 March 2019).

(i) Pravoved.ru – A Skolkovo resident startup working on machine learning and AI to instruct chat-bots, further directing customers to real lawyers to provide legal advice online.

(ii) FastLaw.io is a startup working on smart legal assistants (chatbots) based on natural language processing technology. The startup is a resident of the Skolkovo technopark.³⁴

(3) Online dispute resolution - online alternative dispute resolution services based on the submission of electronic documents

(a) Online arbitration serves to facilitate the independent, impartial and efficient resolution of commercial disputes arising out of contractual and non-contractual relations and is administered by the Association for the Promotion of Arbitration.³⁵ (b) DI’S PUT is a new platform being developed for online arbitration in the area of

intellectual property.³⁶

(4) Law practice management software which offers ecosystems for law firms and law departments that simplify billing processes, task management and case analysis (a) Case.pro - provides a project management ecosystem integrated with Microsoft

Office, Dropbox, Gmail and other platforms.³⁷

(b) Jeffit is a time and task management tool for the whole firm or in-house legal department that also enables clients to check task fulfilment, with real-time remote and transparent access to a law firm's billing details.³⁸

(c) XSUD,³⁹ ProjectMate,⁴⁰ and You-right.ru⁴¹ offer court case and claim management software solutions.

(d) Legal Research solutions comprise databases of legislation, case law and other materials based on text recognition that facilitate legal research (ConsultantPlus, Garant, Pravo.ru, kad.arbitr, GAS Pravosudie).

In sum, legal innovation in Russia is currently largely based on online marketplaces, document automation and similar low-tech solutions. Just a few players have adopted blockchain or sophisticated AI for natural language processing as the core for their innovative solutions.

34 FastLaw.io website <https://fastlaw.io/> (accessed 06 March 2019).

35 Online Arbitration website <http://online.arbitrations.ru/en/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

36 IPChain website <https://ipchain.ru/association/services/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

37 Case.pro website <https://casepro.pro/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

38 Jeffit website <https://jeffit.ru/> (accessed 05 March 2019).

39 XSUD website <https://xsud.ru/> (accessed 06 March 2019).

40 ProjectMate website <https://www.projectmate.ru/> (accessed 06 March 2019).

41 You-right.ru website <https://you-right.ru/> (accessed 06 March 2019).

The Russian market also has only a few prominent international legaltech solutions, probably in part due to language barriers. Russia has only one state language on the federal level (Russian), and the majority of legal documents do not have official English translations.

According to Skolkovo, legaltech startups in Russia generally do not raise more than US$150,000. However, there are certain exceptions: for instance, Pravoved.ru managed to raise US$2 million and OnlinePatent.ru about US$800,000.

In general, experts highlight the following trends with respect to adoption of legaltech in Russia:

(a) Legaltech startups are starting to raise investments;

(b) The number of strategic alliances and mutual projects is growing; and

(c) There is increasing interest from in-house law departments and support for legaltech from the Russian government.⁴²