“That
was
a
lot,”
muttered
someone
behind
me
as
we
shuffled,
along
with
2,700
other
attendees,
out
of
the
Hynes
Convention
Center’s
cavernous
main
stage.
It
was
an
apt
way
to
describe
Jack
Newton’s
opening
address
kicking
off
the
13th
annual
ClioCon.
Newton
came
out
in
a
trademark
blazer-on-t-shirt
look
and
proceeded
to
serve
the
audience
a
fire
hose
in
the
face
worth
of
information.
Looking
both
forward
and
backward,
Newton
walked
through
the
company’s
moves
over
the
last
year
—
and
its
pending
acquisition
of
vLex
—
Newton
stringing
everything
together
into
a
fairly
overwhelming
vision.
In
a
space
where
tech
providers
like
to
stake
out
a
cozy
niche,
Clio
is
going
to
do…
everything.
Well,
not
everything,
but
most
everything.
Small
law
firm
practice
management
remains
at
the
core,
but
now
they
have
a
completely
separate
unit
working
on
Biglaw
and
large
corporate
legal
departments.
Business
of
law
remains
their
legacy,
but
now
they’re
a
practice
of
law
provider.
Legal
research?
Sure!
Law
firm
AI?
Why
not?
CRM?
Of
course!
One
clever
joke
at
8am’s
rebranding
aside,
by
the
end
of
the
presentation,
it
felt
as
though
Clio
isn’t
competing
against
other
practice
management
providers
anymore,
but
everyone
from
Thomson
Reuters
to
Harvey.
Legal
tech
doesn’t
have
a
history
of
anyone
being
all
things
to
all
people,
Newton
explained
that
we’ve
reached
a
crossroads
where
it’s
not
only
a
possible
approach,
but
an
essential
one.
Artificial
intelligence
runs
on
context.
Without
context,
it’s
just
hurling
words
at
a
dartboard
while
assuring
the
user
that
their
query
was
very
smart.
With
context,
the
algorithm
can
provide
better
responses
and
make
connections
across
the
workflow.
So
tear
down
the
silos
between
business
of
law
and
practice
of
law.
Allow
the
system
to
understand
the
calendar
and
exactly
what
that
means
for
drafting.
“With
Clio
Work,
we’re
launching
a
new
era
of
legal
productivity,”
Newton
explained.
“By
integrating
vLex’s
world-class
legal
research
library
and
Vincent
AI
directly
into
the
Clio
platform,
we’re
giving
legal
professionals
one
intelligent
workspace
to
manage
cases
and
execute
AI-powered
workflows,
all
without
switching
systems.
Clio
Work
leverages
more
context
than
any
legal
AI
in
the
world,
combining
your
matter
and
practice
data,
together
with
the
world’s
most
comprehensive
database
of
legal
data,
to
deliver
the
highest
quality
outcomes.
It’s
everything
a
lawyer
needs
to
think,
write,
and
win,
all
in
one
place.”
The
Intelligent
Legal
Work
Platform,
as
Clio
brands
it,
brings
Clio’s
core
products
—
Manage,
Grow,
Draft,
and
the
new
Work
—
into
a
single
AI
nervous
system.
But
this
horizontal
expansion
of
what
Clio’s
offering
its
small
and
solo
customers,
organically
inspired
the
vertical
expansion
into
Biglaw.
Getting
Clio
to
this
point
required
key
acquisitions.
Good
thing
the
company
had
gobs
of
money.
Specifically,
Clio
went
out
and
picked
up
ShareDo
(revamped
as
Clio
Operate),
which
provided
an
operational
spine
for
massive
firms
built
to
make
managing
2,000
lawyers
feel
less
like
herding
cats
through
Outlook.
And
very
soon,
Clio
will
have
acquired
vLex
and
its
Vincent
AI
offering
that
rests
on
a
billion-plus
legal
document
archive
(becoming
Clio
Library).
The
thing
is,
these
were
already
enterprise-grade
tools
with
homes
in
Biglaw,
so
Clio
might
as
well
join
that
market
too.
Legal
tech
doesn’t
scale
up
from
small
law
to
Biglaw
very
often.
On
the
other
hand,
Clio
has
the
advantage
of
integrating
products
with
existing
Biglaw
relationships.
It’s
easier
to
close
the
deal
when
you’re
already
inside
the
door.
All
this
Biglaw
talk
could
have
alienated
the
small
law
crowd,
but
Newton
made
sure
to
assuage
those
fears.
Enterprise
won’t
steal
zero-sum
resources
from
Clio’s
small
law
work,
it’s
going
to
be
a
completely
separate
unit.
It’s
also,
he
explained,
going
to
funnel
key
insights
back
to
the
small
law
product.
By
solving
Biglaw’s
toughest
operational
puzzles,
Clio
plans
to
effectively
level
the
entire
profession.
When
a
2,000-lawyer
shop
demands
bulletproof
features,
the
same
code
improves
billing
for
the
10-lawyer
firm
down
the
street
who
otherwise
might
have
just
developed
its
own
nimble
workaround.
This
all
felt
a
bit
like
a
moonshot.
Legal
tech
vendors
don’t
generally
talk
like
this.
There’s
always
talk
of
exciting
updates
and
expansions,
but
Newton’s
vision
involves
fundamentally
rethinking
how
law
firms
divide
their
work.
It’s
all
about
the
execution,
of
course,
but
looking
around
the
convention
center
and
remembering
my
first
ClioCon
in
the
basement
of
a
Chicago
hotel
with
a
few
hundred
attendees,
it’s
difficult
to
bet
against
Clio’s
capacity
to
convert
on
its
ambitions.