The renowned law firm Mishcon de Reya has recently launched a startup accelerator programme in cooperation with the corporate innovation specialist and early stage investor L Marks. It’s called MDR LAB and is a dedicated programme for tech startups in the legal space. Open to early stage and growth stage startups, applications are welcomed till the 12th of March from young companies creating products or services that are applicable to the legal industry.
Successful applicants will have the opportunity to join Mishcon de Reya in London for a ten week period in the summer. This will help them to work within their target market to pilot and improve products and to gain a better understanding of how legal services are provided and where lawyers – and their clients – would benefit from new technologies. The selected startups will have access to Mishcon de Reya lawyers and other business experts throughout the firm for advice, mentorship and education. In addition, those chosen to participate in MDR LAB will receive access to Mishcon de Reya’s legal and business networks with opportunities for attracting investment and/or licensing products to Mishcon de Reya.
Based in London with offices in New York, Mishcon de Reya services an international community of clients and provides advice in situations where the constraints of geography often do not apply. The work which the law firm undertakes is cross-border, multi-jurisdictional and complex.
Mishcon de Reya is particularly interested in innovations that relate to one of the following categories:
- Legislation: Lawyers have seen an explosion in the amount of information they need to manage through the litigation process. Mishcon de Reya is looking for innovations that can help its lawyers make sense of and use this data in a more effective and efficient way.
- Transactional Law: Clients are constantly challenging lawyers to work quicker and more cost effectively. Mishcon de Reya wants to hear from businesses that are developing technology that could help streamline transactions. This might be through smarter document reviewing and creation, automation of processes or innovations that disrupt an entire category of transactional law.
- Business of Law: Providing the best service for clients relies on systems and infrastructure that are easy to use and efficient. From tracking the progress of cases to communicating with clients and managing costs, Mishcon de Reya is looking for technology that can help it run its business in a way that maintains the highest quality service.
- Wildcard: Some innovations are hard to categorise, so the firm also wants to hear from startups working on ideas that it hasn’t thought about yet. The wildcard category is intended to capture those innovations that don’t fit within one of the above three category areas.
Applications are open until the 12th of March, with a pitch day happening at the firm’s headquarters in central London in April. If you’re running a startup in the legal space, apply now!
