#NewLaw Profile: Noory Bechor, Algorithm Law
On MyShingle, we celebrate the solo and small firm practitioner, and those at the forefront of innovation in the legal field. Our newest project, 41 Legal Practice Areas That Didn’t Exist 15 Years Ago highlights solo and small firm practitioners who have embraced unconventional and upcoming niche practices from Organic Certification Law to E-Sports Law.
Our second profile is of Noory Bechor, the CEO and Co-Founder of Law Geex. His focus is on what falls under Algorithm Law.
Algorithms are vital to the internet as we know it. Computers use algorithms as instructions to solve problems and undertake complex tasks–such as sorting large amounts of data in a predictable pattern. As algorithms have become more sophisticated, they have the potential to predict the strength of clientele cases and streamline legal work. The mission of Noory Bechor’s company revolves around disrupting the industry via a different approach to contract review.
Q: What is your name, your law firm’s name and location and website?
A: Noory Bechor, CEO and Co-Founder LawGeex (www.lawgeex.com)
Q: At what point in your career did you begin to focus on Algorithm Law, and what was the motivation for choosing Algorithm Law?
A: When I was working for a law firm, I represented a lot of venture capital firms, Israeli start-ups and big multinationals that came to do business in Israel. This made me realize two things: first, that I wanted to become an entrepreneur, and second, that I was really frustrated that lawyers didn’t have good technology at their disposal to do their jobs better. My idea was that if you could train a computer to understand the language of lawyers—to understand legalese—you could have a very big impact on the industry
Q: Tell us a little about your work in Algorithm Law. What types of clients do you represent and what are some of the legal issues you encounter?
A: Our artificial intelligence solution helps in-house legal teams automate the review and approval of contracts and we have clients within legal departments in sectors from finance, to retail and manufacturing. When we started, four and a half years ago, people in legal and in business didn’t even understand what we were trying to do. Now things have advanced a lot since then and right now, there are several companies focusing on AI for legal. A small number of companies are doing AI for contracts, and within that, we focus on the process of getting day-to-day contracts reviewed and approved. That’s different to a solution that automates due diligence, for example—which reviews contracts after they are signed and looks for specific potential issues. We are squarely focused on the pre-signing phase. The whole process of contract review and negotiation is very stressful and creates a lot of difficulties for lawyers. I felt like this was the biggest pain in legal, which made it very interesting but also very challenging for us to try to solve.
Q: What do you enjoy most about Algorithm Law?
A: I like being in a situation where we are helping lawyers to be more strategic and add value to the business by removing mundane tasks. I often hear our clients say they did not go to law school to review NDAs or other everyday agreements. I really think that the place where there is the most friction in legal, and especially commercial legal, is the process between the client having a contract in their hands and being able to sign. We can leave the AI to take care of the simple, mundane, repetitive tasks while the human lawyers take care of whatever is unique and requires thought and strategy. We often talk about ‘love legal’, because we want lawyers to love legal and we want their customers to love legal. Right now, that’s not the case.
Q: What kind of background is necessary for Algorithm Law? What advice do you have for other attorneys interested in Algorithm Law?
A: Based on my experience, there, are a number of changes in mindset that lawyers may need to focus on to be a part of disruptive technology changing the profession. This includes focusing more on the big picture, being optimistic, collaborating well with others, ceding some control, and challenge assumptions. But we need more entrepreneurs and companies in this space – we are still very far from seeing the shift from manual to technology processes within the legal profession.
The Law Uninvented Profile Series is co-written and edited by MyShingle’s new Content Coordinator, Rachel Wallen.