Linklaters has revealed details of an ongoing partnership with automation platform BRYTER as it seeks to roll out new legaltech products.

The firm’s relationship with the Berlin-headquartered company is being overseen by recently appointed head of practice innovation Greg Baker. 

One early result of the collaboration is a dawn raid app, a multi-jurisdictional tool built by practice innovation lawyers and Linklaters’ antitrust and foreign investment group (AFIG) to support clients in the event of an unannounced inspection by antitrust authorities. The app covers 11 jurisdictions and can be customised by users to fit different crisis response scenarios, the firm said.

“As we continue to identify areas across the firm that are ripe for innovation and disruption, BRYTER’s powerful and adaptable platform enables us to quickly prototype, test and identify the right development route for solutions created to make the lives of our clients and lawyers easier,” Baker said. 

Founded in 2018 by former lawyer Michael Grupp, BRYTER’s no-code automation software sets out to provide law firms and legal departments with the ability to build, manage and sell interactive applications without the need for programming knowledge.

To date it has received total funding of $89m, according to Crunchbase, and has offices in New York, London, Frankfurt and Berlin. Clients include Deloitte, Telefonica, ING, Ashurst, McDonalds and Baker McKenzie. 

Commenting on the dawn raid app, Emma Cochrane, an AFIG counsel at Linklaters, said: “Unannounced inspections or dawn raids by antitrust authorities require a rapid and coordinated response. We've worked to make it straightforward to access and really easy for our clients to understand the first steps in the event of a dawn raid and when to get in contact with our AFIG lawyers, wherever they may be in the world."

Earlier this year, Linklaters’ transitioned its in-house contract lifecycle management platform CreateiQ to the forefront of its innovation efforts at the expense of its in-house tech startup, Nakhoda. The shift in emphasis saw Shilpa Bhandarkar, who was appointed CEO of Nakhoda after founder and former CEO Partha Mudgil left the firm in February 2020, become CEO of CreateiQ, which was developed by the Nakhoda team.

Law firms are increasingly teaming up with tech companies to develop new products. In January, Baker McKenzie partnered with intellectual property tech company MaxVal to create an IP management system that is fine-tuned for the firm’s brand management practice clients. It also has an ongoing partnership with artificial intelligence specialists SparkBeyond.