ABAfreelegalanswersOn this last day of September, catching up on legal tech news:

LexisNexis acquires Intelligize. This was announced Sept. 21 and I have not had a chance to get to it here. Fortunately, Jean O’Grady has it covered at her blog Dewey B Strategic. Intelligize is an analytics platform for mining intelligence out of SEC filings, M&A contracts, transactional agreements and corporate governance documents. It was founded in 2007 by Gurinder Sangha, a former lawyer at White & Case and Shearman & Sterling. Last year, Sangha founded LitIQ, a startup that aims to help lawyers avoid errors in drafting documents.

ABA launches virtual legal advice clinic. The ABA on Sept. 22 rolled out ABAFreeLegalAnswers.org, an online legal clinic that gives low-income users the ability to pose legal questions to volunteer attorneys. “Free Legal Answers is a no-cost, online version of the walk-in clinic model where clients request brief advice and counsel about a specific civil legal issue from a volunteer lawyer,” ABA President Linda Klein said in a statement. “It is an important part of the ABA’s efforts to expand access to legal services to low-income communities. With our partner states, the program also provides significant pro bono opportunities for lawyers. It’s a real win-win.”The service is so far available in Connecticut, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia and Wyoming and the ABA expects it to be in the majority of states by the end of the year. Victor Li has more details at the ABA Journal.

Box introduces a legal hold feature. The cloud storage and collaboration platform Box now offers a legal hold capability as part of a broader set of corporate governance tools it introduced last year as Box Governance.  “Any time a lawsuit is filed, your corporate counsel can log into Box, find custodians who are named in the suit, place holds on their content and manage all matters related to Box content in one centralized mechanism,” said the announcement.

Reed Tech unveils new patent research service. Reed Tech, a company owned by LexisNexis, has introduced a new patent research product, LexisNexis TotalPatent One. The product is “designed to deliver on-point results derived from the most comprehensive and in-depth content collection of patent and non-patent literature available” using “state-of-the-art search technology,” according to the announcement. I’ve previously written about another Reed Tech product, LexisNexis PatentAdvisor.

New Martindale-Nolo Legal Marketing Network. Online media company Internet Brands has launched a new marketing network for lawyers, the Martindale-Nolo Legal Marketing Network. The network brings together various sites that Internet Brands owns in the legal vertical. This network of sites includes Martindale.com, Lawyers.com, Nolo.com, Attorneys.com, AllLaw.com, TotalAttorneys.com, DisabilitySecrets.com, DivorceNet.com, DrivingLaws.org, and a variety of other practice-specific sites. “More than 15 million consumers and business professionals visit the Martindale-Nolo network’s websites monthly, providing unprecedented access to potential new clients,” the company said in announcing the new network. “Attorneys can pick and choose from a wide selection of online marketing tools that suit their needs, from traditional leads to website hosting to SEO.” The network will provide lead-generation services, professional websites and online profiles, and integration with Ngage Live Chat, a chat interface designed for lawyers.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.