Is delivering the best legal technology ecosystem across the practice and business of law and transforming how global legal teams use technology to collaborate so they can focus on what matters.
Litera (then Microsystems) was born in 1995 to solve a specific problem: helping law firms transition their documents from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word. In the 25 years since, the issues that technology can solve have evolved, and so have we. Today, Litera partners with the world’s leading law firms to drive their digital transformation agendas. We are built on the notion that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts and have brought different organizations together to become industry-leading end-to-end providers. Most of the world’s largest law firms and corporate legal departments partner with Litera to transform how they win matters, create, review, and perfect legal documents, execute M&A and other corporate transactions, and manage cases.
We opened our headquarters in downtown Chicago with 60 employees in 2017, and we now have more than 1,000 employees worldwide. Our fast-paced growth mindset and highly collaborative work culture have enabled us to become a LegalTech industry leader during Chicago’s growth as a tech hub. At the time, we recognized that legal documents and workflows are the centerpieces of much of business, but they also cause tremendous inefficiencies, frustrations, and avoidable errors. Technology should offer solutions. However, it can sometimes be a hindrance rather than a help. Users find themselves juggling dozens of single-point solutions that interrupt their workflows and distract them from the thoughtful work they should be doing—legal analysis and helping clients achieve their objectives.
Over the past year, Litera expanded the business to enable legal teams to collaborate using Litera solutions for everything from the practice of law to the business of law. Our practice of law products allows attorneys to produce quality work quickly and with fewer errors through secure, modern cloud productivity solutions. At the same time, the business of law products unlocks the power of your law firm’s data to empower partners and strategic functions to manage clients, matters, and human capital talent. Firm Intelligence is a data-driven intelligence platform that streamlines operations related to matter management, budgeting, and pricing for law firms. Our technology automates repetitive tasks and checks legal professionals’ written work, improving job satisfaction and quality of life.
In addition, Litera acquired Kira Systems in August 2021 to add leading machine learning contract analysis to its product portfolio. On a typical M&A deal, lawyers are only reviewing a small set of contracts because it traditionally has not been economically feasible to do more. This selective process inherently increases risk in the deal, and important information can be overlooked. With Kira, lawyers can review more contracts efficiently and accurately to mitigate risks and provide more significant insights into transactions.
In early 2022, Litera acquired another collaboration and governance software solution to allow clients to better manage their collaboration systems by making it easier to provision, classify, protect, move, and minimize data, ultimately mitigating risks related to privacy and cybersecurity. Most law firms and organizations use at least one collaboration system (Microsoft 365, DMS, etc.) to drive efficiency and productivity. While these systems provide many benefits, when unmanaged and ungoverned, they can result in data chaos and expose organizations to risks related to privacy and cybersecurity.
Our products boast more than 15,000 global customers across 96% of the world’s largest law firms. And we’re incredibly proud of our customer retention rate—over 98%. Litera relies on our Chicago technology community for the talent, camaraderie, and connections we need to continue our extraordinary growth. We started in the Chicago suburbs in 1995 as Microsystems. While we’ve grown and branched out with employees across more than 17 countries, our commitment to Chicago has never strayed. Thanks to organizations like the Illinois Technology Association, Built-in Chicago, and 1871, the community we are a part of here is unparalleled.
