For LSI Alum Mary Juetten, starting Evolve Law was kind of an accident. Evolve Law, which recently announced a merger with Above the Law, partners with more than 140 legal companies and innovators – including Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer, Avvo, and LegalZoom – to help accelerate the adoption of new technology in the legal industry.
I was commiserating with a fellow entrepreneur about the slow adoption of technology within legal and we decided to do some events where the lawyers could demo our solutions. We did a few events and the response was incredible.
In 2015, after putting on several successful events, her collaborators asked her to start a company that focused on fostering technology adoption in the legal community. Evolve Law was born.
The road to legal technology
In 2007, Juetten made the mid-career decision to go back to law school. “With a business background and hundreds of crime novels and films under my belt, I planned to become a white-collar crime prosecutor.” But while a student at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law (ASU Law), she was drawn back to business and technology.
Juetten was attracted to the school’s Technology Venture Clinic and the science and technology focused law journal Jurimetrics. She also earned a Law, Science & Technology Certificate through focused course work with the Center for Law, Science & Innovation.
Juetten remains connected to LSI today. She attended the inaugural Arkfeld Legal Analytics & Big Data Workshop, which just held its second annual event this October. Juetten is also a valued LSI Community Board member.
While working as a law student at a local software company and the Technology Venture Clinic, Juetten had the idea to create a “TurboTax” that would help businesses identify intellectual property. She decided to skip taking the bar exam, and instead focus on building a company. In 2012, Juetten launched her other buisness, Traklight, which serves law firms and large and small businesses through strategic partnerships.
The evolution of Evolve Law
Evolve Law began small, with just about 25 members, and Juetten expected it to stay that way. But it grew to more than 100 member companies in less than a year. Juetten is proud of facilitating connections within the community:
We have helped our members connect with some of the larger companies to form strategic partnerships and our Evolve Law Summit helped some members raise money. We have even had one member purchase another member company.
Evolve the Law is the name of the new collaboration’s legal innovation center and it’s a blend of Evolve Law members and Above the Law’s platform.
It’s very exciting with the over a million viewers now for member content and company listings. Our popular podcast will continue and our members still will hold events in their cities, plus signature events with Above the Law support.
What’s next for a legal entrepreneur
Juetten is planning to return to ASU Law next year to pursue a Master of Laws (LLM). She eventually hopes to complete a doctorate and focus her work on reforming legal education and the legal industry with research and practical approaches.