Hunter Browning, co-founder of Rule One, sees how litigation costs have expanded with the increase in digital documents and data. The discovery phase of a case often requires the ability to examine millions of documents.

“It’s made litigation so exorbitantly expensive,” said Browning.

Rule One goes beyond simple keyword searching to bring artificial intelligence, conceptual analysis, and pattern recognition across millions of documents. They’ve brought together a team of legal experts, technical experts, and a lot of beta testing with top national legal firms to refine their offering.

“A lot of these other competitors are, I think, building it in a box and hoping it works in the industry,” said Browning.

Although e-discovery tools are popping up across the industry, legal services often remain woefully behind the times when it comes to technology.

“I underestimated how un-tech savvy our customers were,” said Browning.

Technological unemployment is a real worry in the legal market as many legal services are now being automated. Browning sees this as ultimately a good thing.

“A lot of the fear is coming from some of the older partners who know that they’ve had a lock on this legal market,” said Browning. “If technology surpasses [you] and you no longer have a way to add value to a system, that’s a fundamental flaw and you need to figure that out.”

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Special thanks to Jordan Green Productions and Think Big Partners .