In what might be one of the most unfortunate booth placements in recent memory, Nuix was directly across from Clearwell at Legal Tech LA this week. Every time I walked by, the Nuix team was handling a crowd that was oftentimes two or three people deep.

We first looked at Nuix a year or so ago, and while it was powerful and fast, the interface left a great deal to be desired in terms of general “friendliness.” The new interface is much better, but I’d still have a hard time turning attorneys loose on it. At this point, Clearwell owns the advantage in user friendliness, while Nuix (according to their numbers) appears to have the advantage in ingestion and indexing speed.

What will happen next? We may be looking at the next Concordance/Summation situation. It’s likely to be Nuix and Clearwell wrestling for the early case assessment (ECA) higher ground. Whether IPRO and LexisNexis are in an ideal position — or are simply too late — to leapfrog Nuix and Clearwell remains a mystery for now.