Reynen Court, a legal technology platform backed by 20 large international law firms, has revealed it is now working with the legal departments of 20 major banks and corporations towards its goal of accelerating advanced technology adoption in the legal industry. 

Half of the Amsterdam-based company’s new collaborators are some of the world’s largest banks, including Barclays, BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley and UBS. The remainder of the group include tech giants like Intel and Cisco Systems, as well as several unnamed companies working across the telecommunications, travel, media and manufacturing sectors, among others. 

The new additions to the group will follow the stated aim of the original collaborators and work together to advance the development of standards designed to speed the legal industry’s adoption of artificial intelligence, smart contracts and other new technologies, the company said.

Reynen Court, which describes itself as an ‘app store’ for legal technology, was founded in 2018 by former Cravath Swaine & Moore securities lawyer Andrew Klein. It formally launched last year with the support of 19 big law firms, including Latham & Watkins and Clifford Chance, which both serve as co-chairs of the company’s law firm consortium. 

Klein said: “We are driven by the opportunity to establish clear standards for the legal technology sector. Since the legal services market is triangular – defined by law firms, legal departments and the vendors of technology – it has always been our plan and ambition to bring into collaboration the in-house legal department.” 

The company said more than 140 third-party application vendors are currently present on Reynen Court or working towards making their products available on the platform. It raised $4.5m during a second funding round last year, and has received investments from Latham, Clifford Chance, as well as Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. 

Max Iori, managing director and global head of technology and data law at Morgan Stanley, said: “Reducing the time and cost involved in sourcing, testing and safely deploying new cloud-based solutions is an important objective for our internal legal teams and for firms providing services to us.” 

Earlier this year, Reynen Court launched a new version of its app store platform that sets out to allow law firms and in-house teams to more easily access and manage third-party software applications without stressing their own IT infrastructure.

A recent study by Oxford University’s Saïd Business School on behalf of the Solicitors Regulatory Authority in the UK found that just over a third of firms said they currently use advanced systems, such as automated documents, interactive websites and artificial intelligence. 

Almost all of the surveyed firms said they believed tech-focused changes made in the areas of processing work and interacting with clients would remain in place as the legal industry slowly shifts into the post-Covid world.