VLEX sale creates new market challenges – artificial lawyer

It came as a surprise that was Clio who bought Vlex, but it is no surprise that VLEX made a deal with someone (see today’s news).

VLEX, besides Thomson Reuters, was the other other big big data store that wasn’t ‘Speak for’ After Harvey made an alliance with Lexisnexis. And of course, many people believe it is only a few months before a full deal is made – though Harvey is still likely.

Plus, market rumors were that Harvey had tried to buy VLEX before – for his data, but the offer was not that high, so the rumors went. It looks like CLIO, which has now grown to a large company, had the cash and the stock offer to seal the deal.

Now, should Clio do it? No. Madhe done very well as it is. But with this agreement it can become a player to a completely different degree – and get more part of the market for the big law (as it has historically earned a lot of its income from small and medium law firms.

Should it be worth this….? No. It could have built its productivity tools and maintain its data and continue.

Does VLEX are likely to have many researchers and Were its owners looking for a nice sale at a time of increased ratings? 100% of course they were… ..! Money talks, as they say.

What does that mean? Well, it’s an incentive for clio and removes VLEX from the map for others to make arrangements with it.

Now all eyes turn to Thomson Reuters and what they will do next.

Note: Al mentioned only a week ago that ‘no doubt the proposals are going back and forth for other great possible agreements’ … and there we go.

So how long ago:

• Lexis seals the deal with Harvey? Or does Harvey make it clear 100% clear that it will not make such an agreement?
• And, Thomson Reuters seeks to buy another platform, e.g. Legora? Or did Legora say ‘no way’ and go on independently?

And finally:

• Happens what happens to the legal technology market when everyone uses only four or five large companies for a large part of their legal research and productivity needs? Happens what happens to the rest of the legal technology market … How do they stand, how they grow, how do they hold market share?

This is actually suggestions at the end of the great Big Two dominance … Now we suggest that we will have a Big three (ie clio and vlex and much more growth and probably more M&A deals), the only question will now be if we see a Big Five (if Harvey and Legora stay independently and grow …

The main thing now is how this is consolidated?

Interesting time

PS I have spoken to Vlex several times in recent months and felt a big sale like this was not coming soon, which suggests that this deal came quickly, or at least people who were not in many, many above were not aware of it.

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