After a year-end holiday hiatus, we're back with another episode of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus podcast. In this episode your podcast host, Charlie Uniman, interviews Maya Markovich, Chief Growth Officer of Nextlaw Labs (www.nextlawlabs.com). Maya and Charlie launch this episode by delving into Maya's career and the path that took her from working as a consultant who dealt with change management and user buy-in issues, to law school, to practicing law in the high pressure environment of a law firm (where, as Maya points out, adoption of legal tech - then in its earlier stages - would have helped to manage practice pressures) to her present position at Nextlaw Labs.

Maya next explains just what Nextlaw Labs does for the startups that are part of its accelerator program. As Maya describes Nextlaw Labs, it's an accelerator that helps legal tech startups navigate the legal tech market and, in so doing, takes advantage of an incomparable ecosystem that arises from Nextlaw Labs' relationship with (i) its sister company, the legal tech-focused venture capital firm, Nextlaw Ventures, (ii) its parent organization, the Dentons law firm (the largest firm by attorney headcount in the world) and (iii) the Denton's worldwide referral network of law firms of all sizes. Maya offers a detailed survey of just what an accelerator such as Nextlaw Labs, one that's deeply familiar with the legal tech industry, can do to enhance a startup's chances of success in developing its product and marketing and selling that product to law firms and legal departments.

Because this podcast episode airs at the start of a new year, the conversations turns to to crystal ball gazing; that is to say, making predictions for the legal tech industry in 2020. After asking listeners to remember only the correct predictions made during the podcast, Charlie and Maya (i) reveal their optimistic take on legal tech adoption in the coming year, (ii) discuss trends in M&A for legal tech startups in 2020 (including how those trends may be affected by the increasing "platformization" of legal tech), (iii) cover some of the directions startup funding may take this year and (iv) applaud what is expected to be an increase in 2020 in the number of women who found legal tech startups and join the ranks of early-stage investors in legal tech.

Maya invites legal tech startups who wish to learn more about Nextlaw Labs to reach out to her (at talktous@nextlawlabs.com) for more information about its accelerator program and the benefits available to startups that enter the Nextlaw Labs' accelerator program by virtue of Nextlaw Labs' participation in the ecosystem of Nextlaw Ventures, the Dentons law firm and the Dentons' referral network.