The online legal services area, that vast ‘latent legal market’ that Professor Richard Susskind was urging law firms to ‘unlock’ a few years back, has been a bit flat lately. Apart from a release from Linklaters several months ago – a drafting tool for bankers called Term Sheet Generator – there has been precious little in terms of new development since Eversheds leapt into the burning building of legal dotcommery some two years ago.
Enter Allen & Overy (A&O). One of the first firms into the online services space, the magic circle giant has been a bit quiet – some would say cagey – about its intentions since the first round of serious discussions about standard, generic extranets blew up in its face.
