ABA Techshow is the legal profession’s longest-running and most respected legal technology conference. The 2026 edition runs March 25–28 at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago, bringing together nearly 2,000 legal professionals for four days of CLE programming, hands-on workshops, and an EXPO Hall with over 100 exhibitors.
Litmas AI has been selected as one of 25 semifinalists for this year’s Startup Alley pitch competition, a milestone we’re incredibly proud of. But before we talk about ourselves, we want to talk about what ABA Techshow 2026 is actually focused on, because the themes this year tell an important story about where the legal profession is heading.
The 2026 Theme: Innovation That Protects the Rule of Law
This year’s conference is organized around the theme “Innovation That Protects the Rule of Law,” brought to life through a superheroes motif celebrating legal professionals who use technology to safeguard the justice system.
According to the official programming, sessions focus on helping lawyers:
- Protect sensitive data and client confidentiality
- Navigate emerging risks related to AI, cybersecurity, and digital evidence
- Improve efficiency while maintaining ethical and professional standards
- Expand access to justice and strengthen public confidence in the legal system
It’s a fitting theme for a moment when the profession is navigating enormous change, and it signals that the conversation has matured well beyond “should lawyers use AI?”
What ABA Techshow 2026 Is Actually About (It’s Not Just AI)
One of the things that sets ABA Techshow apart is the breadth of its programming. With over 65 sessions organized across multiple educational tracks, the conference covers far more ground than artificial intelligence alone:
Litigation Superpowers — Technology that gives litigators a competitive edge from discovery through trial.
Guardians of the Data — Cybersecurity and data protection as ethical obligations, not just IT concerns. As firms adopt more tools, including AI platforms, the attack surface for client data grows.
Taming the Machines: AI Workshops — Hands-on sessions on understanding AI tools, their capabilities, their limitations, and how to use them responsibly.
Agents of Access — Technology’s role in expanding access to justice, a critically important conversation as legal services remain out of reach for many.
Limitless Lawyering — Leveraging technology to practice more efficiently and serve clients more effectively, regardless of firm size.
Masters of Attraction — Using technology for business development, client acquisition, and firm growth.
Space, Time and Leadership — Practice management, firm leadership, and the operational side of running a modern law practice.
The Tech Core — Foundational technology skills every lawyer needs.
Conquering Change — Managing technology transitions and organizational adaptation.
Special Ops — Specialized, niche technology applications across specific practice areas.
For litigators, the combination of “Litigation Superpowers” and “Taming the Machines” should be particularly valuable. But the breadth of the full schedule reflects something important: practitioners need cybersecurity literacy as much as they need AI fluency, and business development tools alongside research platforms. Legal technology isn’t one conversation, it’s dozens happening at once.
The Trends Running Through ABA Techshow 2026
Looking across the tracks, keynotes, and Startup Alley entries, several major themes stand out:
The Citation Integrity Crisis
Perhaps no issue has shaped the legal AI conversation more than hallucinated case law. High-profile cases of attorneys submitting briefs with fabricated AI-generated citations have drawn judicial sanctions and national media coverage. At ABA Techshow 2025, panels featured judges who declared AI competency essential to modern practice. In 2026, the conversation has moved from “should we use AI?” to “what verification standards must AI tools meet before attorneys can rely on them?”
The message from courts has been clear: attorneys bear full responsibility for every citation in their filings, regardless of whether AI helped draft them.
Cybersecurity Is No Longer Optional
The “Guardians of the Data” track reflects what the Rules of Professional Conduct already require: protecting client information is an ethical obligation, not an IT preference. Every new tool a firm adopts, especially AI platforms handling sensitive case documents, adds to the data footprint that must be secured.
The Small Firm Technology Gap
Solo and small firm attorneys handle a massive share of the profession’s caseload, but they’re often priced out of the most powerful tools. Multiple Techshow tracks and several Startup Alley entries focus on closing this gap. The “Agents of Access” track and startups like Bradwell (a female-founded AI workspace for solo lawyers) reflect a growing recognition that sophisticated legal technology shouldn’t be reserved for AmLaw 100 firms.
Practice Management Still Matters
Not every challenge is about AI. The “Space, Time and Leadership” and “Limitless Lawyering” tracks address operational fundamentals: running a practice efficiently, managing teams, onboarding technology, and delivering consistent client service. These aren’t glamorous topics, but they’re where most firms win or lose.
The Push Toward Alternative Billing
Clients continue pushing back on traditional hourly billing. Technology that enables flat-fee and alternative billing models is a recurring theme — not just in AI tools but across practice management, document automation, and client communication platforms. Firms that deliver better results at predictable costs have a meaningful competitive advantage.
Startup Alley: 25 Semifinalists Competing for 15 Spots
The Startup Alley pitch competition, now in its 10th year, has become one of ABA Techshow’s signature events. Organized by legal technology journalist Bob Ambrogi of LawNext, 25 semifinalists were selected by a panel of judges, and public voting will narrow the field to 15 finalists who compete live on opening night, March 25.
The 2026 class is impressively diverse. The semifinalist pool spans litigation, email productivity, estate planning, dispute resolution, court reporting, patent workflows, law firm finance, and solo practitioner empowerment. CaseCreate is automating pleading drafting. VoiceScript is integrating court reporting with AI-powered deposition tools. Candle AI is turning the inbox into a productivity hub for legal teams. ZODR Ai and StreamSettle are tackling dispute resolution. EstateMin and EstateScribe are addressing gaps in trusts and estates workflows.
This range reflects a maturing market, one that’s moved past “general-purpose AI for lawyers” toward purpose-built solutions for specific practice areas, firm sizes, and workflows.
Where Litmas AI Fits In
When we look at the themes ABA Techshow 2026 is spotlighting, citation integrity, cybersecurity, access for small firms, efficiency, specialization, they describe the exact set of problems we founded Litmas AI to solve.
We didn’t start as a tech company that decided to build for lawyers. Our team is made up of trial attorneys, appellate lawyers, and AI engineers who lived the problems that generic AI tools can’t fix: thousands of pages of discovery with no efficient way to connect facts to legal elements, motion drafting that consumed non-billable hours, and the risk of relying on AI tools that hallucinate case law.
So we built something different. Litmas AI is a litigation platform that covers the full lifecycle, from case intake through motion filing, in one place:
The Evidence Mapper automatically extracts counts from the operative complaint, breaks them into elements, and searches your uploaded documents to surface the facts, information, and data points that establish each specific element. Complicated case files become clear, connected narratives.
The Motion Builder produces structured, court-ready motions grounded in case-specific facts and verified legal authorities. Attorneys maintain full editorial control, selecting from facts the platform surfaces and reviewing every output before it’s finalized.
The Litiverse knowledge graph maps relationships between parties, witnesses, facts, and documents in three dimensions, giving litigators a visual picture of the entire fact pattern before mediation or trial.
Every citation is verified. Our platform cross-verifies every case law reference against trusted U.S. court opinions using multi-step verification. No hallucinations. No fabricated citations. No sanctions risk. Just research attorneys can stake their reputation on.
And we built it to be accessible. Whether you’re a solo personal injury attorney handling a high-volume docket or a commercial litigation team managing complex multi-entity disputes, Litmas AI delivers enterprise-level capabilities without requiring an enterprise budget. Every client gets a dedicated Customer Success Manager for personalized onboarding from day one.
The result is that attorneys can move from intake to motion up to 10x faster, which doesn’t just save time. It makes flat-fee billing models profitable, gives firms a genuine competitive advantage, and lets attorneys focus on strategy instead of repetitive drafting.
That’s what we want to show at ABA Techshow.
Help Us Get to Chicago — Vote by February 13
Voting is open now through Friday, February 13 at 11:45 PM ET. The top 15 vote-getters earn a spot at ABA Techshow in Chicago, where they’ll compete in a live pitch on opening night and exhibit in the Startup Alley section of the EXPO Hall.
Each voter gets five votes — spread them across five favorites or put all five behind one company.
If we make the final 15, we’ll be showcasing live demos of the Motion Builder, the Litiverse, and the Evidence Mapper — and proving that litigation AI built by litigators delivers something generic tools simply can’t.
Vote for Litmas AI on the official ballot here.
Attend ABA Techshow 2026 or Follow Along
Regardless of Startup Alley, ABA Techshow 2026 is worth paying attention to. Registration is open at techshow.com, with up to 10 CLE credits available in 60-minute states (12 in 50-minute states). The EXPO Hall is free with an EXPO-only pass.
The legal profession is at an inflection point. The tools lawyers adopt in the next few years will define how litigation is practiced for a generation. ABA Techshow remains the place where practitioners, technologists, and innovators come together to figure out what comes next, and we’d be honored to be part of that conversation.
Follow the conference online via #abatechshow, and if you believe litigation deserves AI that was built by the people who actually practice it — vote for Litmas AI before February 13.
Want to see what we’ve built? Book a demo to experience Litmas AI firsthand.