April 14, 2025 -- Issue #336

​

Hi, Charlie Uniman here, host of Legal Tech StartUp Focus ("LTSF"), the online community for everyone involved with legal tech startups. You're reading the latest digest of articles, opinion pieces, and other thoughts posted during the past week at the community.
​

If you enjoy reading this digest, please forward it to others with an interest in legal tech startups. Readers who aren't already members of the LTSF community and who wish to join can do so here. Please do send me feedback here with any questions, comments or other ideas for this digest . If you're not already a subscriber to this newsletter and would like to subscribe, please email me here to join the subscriber list.
​

Oh, and if you want to unsubscribe to this digest, you can do so by using the link in this email's footer.

REMINDER

🍹🍻 NEW YORK CITY HAPPY HOUR EVENT 🍻🍹

To all our community's legal tech startup founders and their colleagues:​
​
​You're invited to a very special Legal Tech StartUp Focus "Startup Leaders Happy Hour" from 6:00 pm to 8 pm on Thursday, May 8, at Jack Doyle's in New York City (located at 240 West 35th Street, at the upstairs bar).​
​
​Joining us at the Happy Hour will be SF-based venture investor Yousuf Khan, a partner at Ridge Ventures, our sponsor for this event. Thank you, Yousuf and Ridge Ventures!!​
​
​So, if you're in NYC on May 8, come by to hoist a drink (or two or three), meet your fellow legal tech startup leaders, and, most importantly, get to know Yousuf and his thoughts on legal tech investing.​
​
​RSVP at the Eventbrite link here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/legal-tech-startup-focus-startup-leaders-happy-hour-tickets-1308517433869?aff=oddtdtcreator​

See you at the Happy Hour!!

Charlie

Conferences and Other Events

◾ If there is a "must attend" virtual get-together for legal tech startup leaders, it's this one:

On Thursday, May 1 (from Noon to 12:30 pm EDT), Russ Korin will sit down in a "fireside chat" with Zach Posner, a co-founder and the Managing Director of The Legal Tech Fund. Russ, who's a lawyer and legal tech guru at NYC law firm, Cohen Tauber Spievack & Wagner, was kind enough to send me a preview of what he'll be discussing with Zach:

As Russ puts it:

"Here's a chance to hear important lessons Zach often shares with tech founders. In this fireside chat . . . Zach will discuss [several] topics including:

​
"How many founders build tech solutions based on personal experience, and why is it crucial to listen to and build for the market? How should founders navigate this balance?

​
"The dynamics among founder teams that, in his experience, have been indicators of success or failure.

​
"How he balances intuition with quantitative analysis when "making investment decisions--especially with respect to the differences between early-stage and later-stage investments.

​
"Zach will also share his thoughts on what's exciting and important in today's legaltech space, particularly with AI, what that may tell us about the future of the legal industry, and what lessons this may hold for tech founders."

Here's a link where you can register to attend: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_13NJLcuDQIOMCAlrWl8Ntw​

​

Fundraising

◾ From VC Tom Tunguz:
​
“With another tariff induced red-tinged day hammering markets, I wondered: Do private markets follow public ones? The data suggests yes—but with a delay & at a fraction of the magnitude.”
​
Well worth reading.
​https://tomtunguz.com/crashes-public-and-private/​

​

◾ Co-founded by ex-Kirkland Partner Joel Arnell and ex-Oaktree investor Seb Lapinski, tech startup Dealstack (which automates workflows in the private capital industry) has closed a $5.5 million seed funding round, with participation from current and former professionals at leading firms such as Paul Weiss, Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, KKR, CVC, TA Associates, Goldman Sachs and others.

Dealstock has prepared a press release that explains much more about what Dealstack's automation tooling brings to private capital firms. That press release can be accessed here: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/82693715?utm_source=manual​

​

◾ From the Sifted startup-news-from-Europe newsletter:
​
“London-based Solve Intelligence, a platform which helps users write intellectual property law [drafting patent applications], raised $12m in Series A funding. 20VC led the round and was joined by investors including Microsoft, Thomson Reuters and Y Combinator.” https://www.solveintelligence.com/blog/post/solve-intelligence-raises-3m​

​

◾ From TechCrunch:
​
“. . . Inventex wants to ease the process of preparing and filing patent applications by using a series of AI agents augmented by licensed attorneys. He believes that Inventex can help companies get patent-pending “10x faster” — in days, rather than months that a traditional firm might take.
​
“The concept quickly attracted investors and after just one month, Ruskin had raised $2.4 million in a pre-seed round to grow Inventex. Conviction Capital, Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, and Cambrian Ventures co-led the financing, which also included participation from Boost and others. The money was raised via SAFEs at a $10 million valuation.”
​
​https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/10/inventex-founder-an-engineer-for-coinbase-at-14-wants-to-revolutionize-patent-applications/​

​
​Hiring/New Hires​
◾ From George Ratcliffe: "Hi folks, for those who don't know I recruit in the legal tech industry and would love to help connect members here with my clients.
​
I have several new searches that have just opened up, with an impressive AI-focused start up.
​
"If you are based in NYC and any of these backgrounds sounds like you, then please drop me a note.
​
"- Attorney, with a focus on Credit, Restructuring, Funds or Litigation, ideally at a Global 100 firm
- Consultant at an MBB or Big4 firm, with AI and product focus, ideally with legal/financial clients
- Sales/Customer Success, at a SaaS based company, with either a legal education, or selling into law firms & legal depts at f500 companies"

​

Honors and Awards

◾ For the first time in its nine-year history, the [ANA Techshow’s] Startup Alley pitch competition ended in a tie.
​
Discover what startups tied for the win: https://www.lawnext.com/2025/04/the-2025-aba-techshow-startup-alley-pitch-competition-ended-in-a-tie-here-are-the-winners.html​

​

Incubators/Accelerators​
​

◾ From Legal IT Insider:

"Dentons UK, Ireland and Middle East (UKIME) has launched a programme called Office Hours, which going forward will govern how innovative new technology is assessed, tested, developed and potentially taken forward by the business."

Legal IT Insider has an exclusive interview with Rowena Rix, Dentons UKIME innovation head, about the program. Of particular note for legal tech startups: Legal IT Insider writes: "There will be opportunities for legal tech companies to refine their product within a structured R&D framework and co-develop solutions tailored to specific use cases."

Read the article in full at this link: https://bit.ly/3XS2qVg​

​

JusticeTech/A2J

◾ "In a newly released report with implications for legal technology and access to justice, Stanford Law School’s Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession and Legal Design Lab, in partnership with the Superior Court of Los Angeles County (LASC), the largest trial court in the United States, offer a comprehensive analysis of the challenges facing high-volume civil dockets and propose tech-forward solutions to address them.

"The report, A Blueprint for Expanding Access to Justice in Los Angeles Superior Court’s Eviction Docket, is based on extensive research by the Stanford team into LASC’s unlawful detainer (eviction) cases. The team analyzed case management data for 150,000 UD filings, conducted more than 100 interviews with court users, hosted focus groups with court staff and legal aid providers, shadowed court users as they navigated court processes, and evaluated the court’s digital tools and web presence."

For more of the excellent reporting on this report from the LawSites blog published by Bob Ambrogi, visit this link: https://bit.ly/4crgBGR​

​

◾ As I've posted previously: "The incomparable Justice Technology Association emailed me explaining: 'A new documentary, JUSTICE: JUST A PROMISE?, is in the works to expose the crisis of self-representation in our justice system and the people fighting to change it. Millions of Americans face life-altering legal issues - evictions, custody battles, job loss - without a lawyer to help. This film will shine a light on the problem and the innovators working toward solutions, but it needs funding to be made.'"

Over the next several weeks I will continue to post to the community about the production of this much-needed documentary and its need for funding. Here's the third of several such posts:

"JTA Is Helping Shape This Justice Tech Documentary

"The Justice Technology Association is proud to support JUSTICE: JUST A PROMISE?, a documentary-in-the-making that explores the justice gap and the innovators working to fix it. JTA’s Sonja Ebron, Maya Markovich, David Engstrom, and Natalie Knowlton are among those interviewed.

"Let’s get this film made! Support here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/justice-just-a-promise#/"

​

LegalEd

◾ “UK law firm Kingsley Napley today (9 April) formally announced its collaboration with behavioural science AI startup Let’s Think, which helps law firms codify and unlock their knowledge to make it available across the firm. A pilot programme is up and running, with a firmwide rollout expected later this year.”
​
$$Quote (from Wendy Jephson, CEO and a co-founder of Let’s Think): “‘Senior employees at law firms have a wealth of expert knowledge yet research shows 90% of this “tacit knowledge” is unwritten, which means it’s lost when people retire or leave. Let’s Think aims to close this gap with ‘The Knowledge Exchange’ – an easy-to-use tool that automates expert knowledge elicitation without impacting billable time, then stores and organises it so that it can be easily accessed by others working in any office or remote location.’”
​
Entire article from Legal IT Insider can be accessed here: https://legaltechnology.com/2025/04/09/kingsley-napley-announces-collaboration-with-behavioural-science-ai-company-lets-think/​
​

Member Introductions/Questions

◾ New community member, George Ratcliffe, posts: "Hi everyone, I'm thrilled to be a part of this community!

"By way of a quick intro, I work with Legal Tech companies to help them hire the best people. Over the years, I've worked with some of the larger players in our space, right down to helping solo-founders hire their first leaders.

"I'm always happy to chat and offer up any valuable insights/intel that I have from the fairly unique position of spending 90% of my working day speaking with people in the legal tech world!"

​

◾ From brand-new LTSF'er, Chioma Wilson-Dike: "Hi everyone. Excited to be here!

​
"We are building an AI-powered platform that transforms raw legislation into structured, comparative compliance intelligence. Users can instantly extract obligations, deadlines, penalties, and enforcement rules across jurisdictions, without needing to manually interpret legal texts.
​
"Paired with this is a smart Oath Administration system, where users can find verified legal professionals to facilitate statutory declarations and oaths, remotely or in person, via a secure, compliant workflow.
​
"Our platform is modular, accessible, and designed for underserved markets where the need for digitized legal infrastructure is most urgent. The result: faster compliance, clearer legal understanding, and streamlined access to core legal actions.

​
"Looking forward to learning from you all and collaborating to grow the LegalTech ecosystem!"

​

◾ Vladimir Maghakyan, a new member of our community, posts: "Hi everyone!

​
"Excited to join the community!
​
"I’m the CEO and Co-founder of Contractee, a platform that simplifies contract review, risk assessment, smart archiving, and e-signature workflows.
​
"Looking forward to connecting with those who may benefit from what we’re building! Happy to contribute to the community discussions!
​
"Best!
"Vladimir"

******************************************************************

Readers can reply to any of the above member introductions by going to the chat section of the "Home" space on the LTSF web page and posting a reply.

​

Partnerships/Business Development​
◾ Following on the heals of KPMG’s partnering with Google Cloud to deploy the latter’s Agentspace agentic AI tooling (with a focus on the legal industry), comes Freshfields joining forces with Google Cloud too.
​
As reported by Legal IT Insider:
​
“This week, Google Cloud announced that it is joining forces with global law firm Freshfields to drive AI innovation across the legal industry. As part of the partnership, Freshfields said it will roll out Gemini with Google Workspace across the firm and will also create AI products to transform its processes.”
​
​https://legaltechnology.com/2025/04/10/freshfields-joins-forces-with-google-cloud-is-this-a-turning-point-in-their-tech-strategy/​

​

Product Development

◾ “On April 2, contract review solutions provider DocJuris announced the launch of its free, AI-powered email agent for corporate legal teams’ contracting processes.”
​
From the Legaltech News article that’s linked below:
​
“. . . [DocJuris CEO Henal] Patel said that DocJuris stands out with its focus on providing corporate legal teams with a free, straightforward email agent that is solely focused on contract review.
​
“‘It's not sort of a broad stroke tool that does conversational AI, it's much more specific in terms of contract, application and use and then it's really all about enabling the user, the human to get output very quickly,’ he said.”
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/04/07/docjuris-unveils-ai-email-agent-for-contract-review-negotiation-enterprise-legal-teams/​

​

◾ Legal tech startup Legal-Monitr.com has launched a new regulatory watch AI agent.

From the Legal-Monitr.com April 9, 2025 press release:

"Legal-Monitr.com, a niche legaltech platform trusted by top law firms and in-house legal teams across Europe and the UK, is introducing a new AI-powered regulatory monitoring agent and its expansion to new markets. Previously focused on keyword-based tracking, Legal-Monitr.com now takes regulatory monitoring a step further, making it easier than ever for legal professionals to stay ahead of critical legal and regulatory changes."

The entire press release can be accessed at this link: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/82777941?utm_source=manual​

​

◾ “Big Four accounting firm KPMG announced an expanded AI partnership with Google Cloud on Wednesday, which will see the firm deploy Google Agentspace to construct agentic AI platforms, with a particular focus on legal services.”
​
Here’s access to the full Legaltech News article: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/04/09/kpmg-partners-with-google-cloud-to-build-agentic-ai-platforms-for-legal-services-clients/​

​

◾ "This week’s AL TV Walk Through is with Canotera, a startup that provides ‘explainable predictions about litigation processes and outcomes’ using a blend of AI approaches.

"As you will see, it provides predictive analytics through a user-friendly UI and generates them by focusing on screening the most similar comparable cases. Comparability is determined after data standardization (using LLMs), geometric distance measuring (using geometric machine learning), and reliability scoring."

Get access to the rest of the article from Artificial Lawyer as well as to the video stream of this Walk Through here: https://bit.ly/448M4M3​

​

◾ Legaltech News’ legal tech rundown - Friday edition. https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/04/11/legaltech-rundown-lexisnexis-adds-ai-assistant-protg-to-lex-machina-thomson-reuters-provides-cocounsel-to-federal-courts-and-more/​
​

Purchasing/Using Legal Tech

◾ From Legaltech News:
​
“As part of our [2025 Legalweek Leader in Tech Law Awards] series, we asked our winners how they're pushing the envelope, what innovation means to them, and more.
​
“Here’s what Iris Skornicki, Director of AI Innovation Strategy at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, which won the Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Award for Tech-Enabled Transactional Practice of the Year, had to say.”
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/04/07/paul-weiss-director-of-ai-innovation-strategy-gen-ai-models-arent-easy-button-solutions/​

​

◾ Joel Bijlmer posts: "Legal professionals have no shortage of tools claiming to change the way they work, so what does it take to distinguish a good tool from a great one? For a select group of in-house and law firm insiders, Dioptra has quietly emerged as the industry’s best-kept secret. Its approach to contract review is to laser focus on reliability. Dioptra’s reputation has expanded through word-of-mouth, fueled by the genuine enthusiasm of its users.
​

"Read the full article: https://thelegalwire.ai/dioptra-contract-analysis-with-a-laser-focus-on-accuracy/"

​

◾ Community member, Jake Risseeuw, posts: "Hi everyone!
​
"I’m Jake a second year Law Student at Monash University over in Australia.
​
Currently i’m working for an AI conveyancing startup helping build partnerships and with strategy. We are in a minimum viable product (MVP stage). The AI has been trained on a variety of real estate and conveyancing contracts to identify key details relevant to the real estate transactions.
​
"It can shift through large documents quickly and parse through what is needed to complete transactions.
​
"We are in the beta-testing phase, so if anyone wants to try the product reach out to me! Would be totally free of charge, we are just trying to get some feedback before we go to market." You can reply to Jake's post here: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/82684594?utm_source=manual​

​

◾ From Artificial Lawyer:
​
“The Skills.law group, headed by US-based Oz Benamram, is asking for people at law firms to complete the following ‘Legal AI Vendor Satisfaction Survey’.
​
“The survey simply asks you to grade a list of legal tech companies from 0 to 10 based on whether you are ‘likely to recommend to a friend or colleague?’ I.e. this is a Net Promoter Score survey.”
​
More details about the survey, and a link to get to the survey itself, can be found here: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/04/09/legal-ai-vendor-satisfaction-survey/​

​

◾ Below is a link to a LinkedIn post from Noah Waisberg (co-founder and CEO of Kira Systems (exited to Litera) and now co-founder and CEO of Zuva), on the positives and challenges that Noah believes Harvey and Legora likely face.
​https://www.linkedin.com/posts/noahwaisberg_over-legal-week-i-got-asked-what-i-thought-activity-7315723915694166016-OSCh?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAACjKkUBuYvfoBWwBGd7KKABZw3jrdiBcc0​

​

Startup Management

◾ "In the not too distant past, no one would mistake a law firm for a legal tech company. Now, it’s not always as clear cut.
​
"The lines between law firms and legal tech providers are blurring when it comes to who is developing the solutions modernizing the practice and business of law. But while there is more overlap than ever between law firms and legal tech organizations, few are worried about the prospect of cannibalizing market share."
​
Legaltech News has more here: https://www.law.com/2025/04/10/law-firms-are-turning-into-tech-developers-legal-tech-providers-arent-worried/​

​

Teaching/Learning Legal Tech

◾ From Legaltech News:

"Michael H. Rubin Partner at Latham & Watkins, which won the Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Award for Best Tech Training Program Implementation, discusses how the firm approaches training and legal innovation."

More here: https://bit.ly/3XMtBRq​

​

◾ Legaltech News reports:
​
“On Wednesday, Hotshot, a video-based legal training and education platform, announced the addition of five new courses to its artificial intelligence topic, developed in collaboration with attorneys from firms including Cooley, Kirkland & Ellis and Sullivan & Cromwell, as well as legal tech vendors, in-house attorneys and law professors. It also announced the release of a private M&A simulation training program, following the successful completion of a limited pilot program with roughly a dozen large firms.”
​
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/04/09/hotshot-releases-ai-courses-and-ma-simulation-developed-in-collaboration-with-big-law-attorneys/​

​