68 LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
JUNE 2016
to support corporate innovation or to in-
novate their own services.
"With technology, jurisdictional bound-
aries mean less and less. I'm not sure that
those who look to the law society to restrict
or slow or prevent change – to maintain
the status quo – are aware of how quickly
things are changing. e unfortunate
thing about the ABS discussion is it has be-
come a stalking horse for innovation, and
it's not. It's a means of funding it but it's
only one means."
Bentley, a former Attorney General of
Ontario, says tech entrepreneurs are using
incubators like his to get free space and ac-
cess to mentors, then raising capital from
family, friends, supporters, angels, differ-
ent government programs, or even private
funding arrangements to bring their new
technologies to market. e law society de-
bate doesn't factor in to their work.
Jason Moyse, Industry Lead at MaRS
LegalX, a Toronto-based cluster that con-
nects technologists, designers, engineers
and lawyers, says much the same thing.
e promising new technologies are
not strapped for cash. While some of the
money may come from permitted invest-
ors such as law firms like Blake, Cassels &
Graydon LLP or McCarthy Tétrault LLP,
two of LegalX's sponsors, Moyse calls the
discussion about alternative business struc-
tures "an irrelevant, a red herring.
"Is capital constrained because of a lack
of alternative business structures in this
region? To date, with what I see, capital is
not an issue. It won't necessarily come from
Canadian angels or venture capitalists, it
will be global capital that comes in.
"e thing about legal technology or
startups is they don't think provincially,
they think globally. If they've got a ter-
rific product with the ability to scale, those
types of things will always be able to at-
tract capital."
Many of the most promising tech star-
tups are aiming squarely at in-house coun-
sel, who are perennially under budget pres-
sures from their company.
Moyse points to Beagle Inc., a contract
analysis company out of Kitchener, Ont.
Beagle very quickly scans the document
and advises with a colour map which provi-
sion favours which side, or is neutral, allow-
ing a non-lawyer to see how it is weighted.
While it was originally conceived to help
small- and medium-sized businesses that
didn't have general counsel, says Moyse,
FRED HEADON
>
AIR CANADA
Cheaper is one thing, we'd
all like to pay less, but that
only gets you so far into the
conversation. How are you
going to do that once you've
used all your traditional
negotiation skills to get the
price down? That's where
in-house can play a helpful
role because of our proximity
to the client, even though
we're not necessarily more
equipped to innovate.
ILLUSTRATION
BY
GARY
NEILL
| IN-HOUSE ADVISOR: FUNDING LEGAL INNOVATION |
