ILTACON 2023: A Legal Tech Wonderland with a Bright Future
A month ago, the Bundledocs global team braved the elements and ventured off to humid Orlando for ILTACON 2023, the annual conference of the International Legal Technology Association. The 5-day conference included 350 distinct educational opportunities and boasted over 3,400 registrants made up of ILTA Member law firms as well as industry technology providers, tech consultants, analysts, and droves of thought leaders. We were one of 158 exhibitors interacting with attendees and helping them navigate new technologies and products … and yes, even if it was not AI!
We eagerly shared a 12 month ‘progress report’ of our cloud bundling and PDF editing solution entry into the North American legal market a year prior which has led to a surge in cloud adoption around document bundling and now PDF editing, sharing best practices and lessons learned around the cloud and the ‘PDF as a Service’ trend.
As Peter Zver, Bundledocs’ VP of Revenue and Operations, North America put it: “One year later, our assumptions have been re-affirmed and increasingly, law firms of all sizes and complexities are leveraging cloud document bundles as well as PDF editing functionality that saves time, expense, and can be used out of the box and without much training or specialization.” The ability for both contributors and attorney-consumers to access the single centralized bundle at it evolves through production has been especially well received.”
This message resonated well with registrants who took time out of their busy educational schedule to meet and greet us. Aside from getting affirmation from firm CIOs and IT leaders, and based on preliminary results of the 2023 ILTA Tech Survey, that the cloud is (finally) here to stay, we had some other observations and takeaways from our weeklong visit to Florida:
Startup Hubs are cool: 25 legal tech start-ups showed off their innovations on a startup demo stage. The main software categories included cost capture and analysis products, legal writing / drafting / document automation / citation tools, contract drafting and transactional support offerings, and multiple software products using business analytics to capture data for litigation support analysis and collaborative purposes. Watching these tech leaders of tomorrow share their vision and promise of a better legal tech community was rather refreshing.
The cautionary tale of Generative AI: If you thought Legalweek New York in March was buzzing with Gen AI news and product demos your head would have really been spinning at ILTACON. Literally, every other vendor we talked with had some sort of an AI message and promise of a future AI silver bullet to cure all ills. Of course, this is a bit dramatic but while Generative AI dominated most conversations, the actual ironclad use cases are virtually nonexistent. So, for now, we’ll keep our eye on how things develop and hope that the next ILTACON in Nashville provides the proof in our AI pudding.
Klik it and they shall come: If the most talked about topic at ILTACON was generative AI, then second on the buzz meter was Klik, the smart badges given to attendees to help us better connect with delegates and each other. Consider these badge readers 2.0 and a very novel way to electronically connect and retrieve onsite contact info. The badges lit up when you clicked a button and signaled contact ‘success’.
Nothing beats tailgating: In typical ILTACON fashion, the Monday evening vendor exhibit hall party (aka the ultimate tailgate party) was a terrific way to kick-off the week and reconnect with old friends. The Bundledocs team represented Irish rugby pride and hopefully converted all non-believers that rugby is the ultimate team sport.
Until next year in Nashville! In the meantime, if you’d like to know what we are thinking and talking about, check out our ILTA TV interview recorded Live onsite in Orlando.