April 6, 2026 -- Issue #388

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.
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Conferences and Other Events

◾ Oh, it happens! Sometimes a party to a deal will ask its lawyers to slow-walk the deal's closing. But that's hardly the norm. In fact, most deal lawyers would consider it almost a luxury to have the client only demand that the deal close "yesterday" — those lawyers being more accustomed to hearing clients ask why the deal didn't close two weeks ago.

So, yes, most of the time the client's in a hurry to close the deal. That's why it's so very helpful for Russ Korins of the Cohen Tauber Spievack & Wagner law in NYC to have a fireside chat event that's scheduled for mid-April and that's aimed at:

Closing the Deal Faster: Five Things Clients Can Do to Help Their Attorneys

Date & Time: Apr 15, 2026 12:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

From the event's registration site:

"Whether in selling your product or service to a new customer, raising money, or selling the entire company—or buying one—deals are frequently held up for reasons that are within the client’s control. What can you do to keep the momentum going and maximize the chance of success?

"In this webinar, CTSW attorneys Jerry Cohen and Russ Korins will discuss ways clients can help their attorneys close deals faster. This is not a clinic on details of legal issues, but instead mostly about workflow and efficiency."

Get more information about the event and get registration access at this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pVNF26jmRkCizfs20SE0Jw​

Exit/M&A

◾ M&A news in a post from Legaltech News (LTN) that covers an acqusition by Solve Intelligence. From LTN's post:

"London-based artificial intelligence patent platform Solve Intelligence announced Tuesday that it acquired Munich-based AI patent litigation startup Palito.ai and plans to establish a new office in Munich. With the acquisition, the financial terms of which were not disclosed, Solve Intelligence plans to add Palito’s validity analysis, case law research, infringement mapping and German court workflow capabilities to its platform, further advancing patent features.

"Solve Intelligence's platform is designed to help attorneys with patent preparation and prosecution, including tasks such as collecting information from inventors, drafting patent applications, coordinating international filings and responding to patent offices."

Access LTN's entire post at this link:

​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/04/02/solve-intelligence-acquires-ai-patent-litigation-startup-palitoai-announces-munich-office/?kw=Solve+Intelligence+Acquires+AI+Patent+Litigation+Startup+Palito.ai,+Announces+Munich+Office&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=afternoonupdate&utm_content=20260402&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&user_id=5a62392218ff43ec508b502b&slreturn=20260403095455​

Fundraising

◾ “Crosby, an NYC-based maker of legal agents, raised $60m in Series B funding. Lux Capital and Index Ventures led, joined by Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil, Bain Capital Ventures, and 01 Advisors. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2026/03/31/why-this-ai-law-firm-is-ditching-the-billable-hour/​
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Is that the way to describe Crosby, as a “maker of legal agents?”

◾ "Cordillera Investment Partners acquired a minority stake in Northridge Law, a London-based law firm focused on sports." https://www.ft.com/content/ab272d57-636a-4419-8107-54b8a4309252?syn-25a6b1a6=1​

Honors and Awards

◾ And the winner is . . . !!
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The LawSites blog has posted the names of the first, second and third place winners at the ABA TECHSHOW’s Startup Alley competition.
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From the LawSites post:
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“CollBox, a company that helps law firms get paid more quickly, won the 10th annual Startup Alley pitch competition at ABA Techshow last week in Chicago.
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“Second place went to Candle AI, an email assistant that helps small and mid-sized law firms eliminate email overload. The third-place winner was Lawdify, an autonomous AI agent for disputes and claims assessment.”
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The full post can be read here: https://www.lawnext.com/2026/03/collbox-wins-10th-annual-startup-alley-pitch-competition-at-aba-techshow.html​

Product Development

◾ From the March 30, 2026, press release that Aderant, a global provider of business management and practice-of-law solutions, issued today:

"ATLANTA -- March 30, 2026--Aderant®, a global provider of legal business management software, today announced the successful completion of its SOC 2 Type 2 examination for Onyx, reinforcing the company’s continued focus on operational discipline, security, and reliability across its cloud platform."

“'This milestone demonstrates the strength and consistency of our control environment and the rigor behind how we operate Onyx,' said Niveta Chowdhry, VP of Business Operations & Cybersecurity at Aderant. 'Law firms are operating in increasingly complex, high-stake environments, and they need technology partners they can rely on. Our focus is not just on meeting standards, but on continuously raising the bar for security, reliability, and performance.'
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"Onyx is part of Aderant’s cloud portfolio, designed to support the evolving needs of modern law firms with scalable, resilient infrastructure and enterprise-grade safeguards."

The entire press release from Aderant is available at this link: https://www.aderant.com/news-pr/aderant-achieves-soc-2-type-2-examination-for-onyx/​

◾ Legal IT Insider tees up a post about a product launch by Draftable, the Australian legal tech vendor that is expanding its product offerings outside document comparison to include document metadata cleaning.

From the Legal IT Insider post:

"Legal technology provider Draftable has announced the launch of Draftable Clean, a metadata cleaning solution developed in response to demand from law firm customers and prospects. This is Draftable’s first move outside of the document comparison space.

"Draftable Legal was launched by Draftable in 2023 in response to demand from the legal market for more choice of document comparison solutions. Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, it now has teams across the US, EMEA and APAC, with around 1,000 law firm customers globally. Speaking to Legal IT Insider, general manager Dr Caspar Roxburgh said that the most consistent request from its customers was for metadata cleaning to be available alongside Draftable Compare."

​https://legaltechnology.com/2026/04/01/exclusive-draftable-makes-first-move-outside-of-comparison-with-draftable-clean/?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--XqjIk6TyinhyLCd85nOHyNdFhsSrpDeQ401v69qGFw00rz9_vpJJ6XYkT58Sh-MQMppMP2aBQmwabyVRDSFYqfp2yCId3fnm97eBKirHhuMRx7VY&_hsmi=132387423&utm_content=132387423&utm_source=hs_email​

◾ An Artificial Lawyer (AL) post about Harvey's creation of a business operations agent called Spectre for use by Harvey itself, but described as a template for what a law firm or legal department can deploy. (I hope Harvey chose the name "Spectre" as a play on the name of the Suits TV series character "Harvey Specter," and not as an homage to the global crime syndicate "Spectre" in the Bond movies.)

From the AL post:

"Harvey has unveiled details about Spectre, its company agent that is starting to autonomously handle a range of tasks inside the business. It points to the future of the legal sector and the potential for a ‘law firm world model’ that handles most ‘intelligence work’.

"President and Co-Founder of Harvey, Gabe Pereyra, notes in an article this week that today ‘much of what Spectre does is no longer triggered by a human prompt. It is triggered by the system monitoring the company and making decisions based on incidents, bug reports, customer feedback, and Slack messages’."

"Now, that’s impressive, but that’s just the start of things. As Pereyra explains in his piece, once you can do what Spectre does, then it opens up a whole new way of looking at business organisation, and that will include how law firms and inhouse legal teams function."

Access the entire AL post here: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/04/03/harveys-spectre-agent-points-to-law-firm-world-model/​

◾ Plenty of product/feature releases (and a business partnership announcement) in this week's Legaltech News legal tech rundown. Get the rundown for the business week that's ending today, April 3, 2026:

​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/04/03/legaltech-rundown-thomson-reuters-teams-up-with-hotshot-in-law-schools-clio-adds-agentic-features-to-clio-work-and-more-/?kw=Legaltech+Rundown:+Thomson+Reuters+Teams+Up+With+Hotshot+in+Law+Schools,+Clio+Adds+Agentic+Features+to+Clio+Work,+and+More&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=afternoonupdate&utm_content=20260403&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&user_id=5a62392218ff43ec508b502b​

◾ Product development news from a post on LinkedIn by Khalil Zlaoui, founder and CEO of immigration law legal tech startup CaseBlink:

"📣 BIG news from CaseBlink!
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"We’re launching our AI-first case management module, bringing the entire case lifecycle into one intelligent system. Built on top of our AI-powered case preparation tools, this makes CaseBlink a first-of-its-kind, next-generation, end-to-end immigration AI platform.
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"Manage. Organize. Research. Draft. Assemble. All in one powerful, intuitive workspace, designed for how modern immigration practices run.
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"At CaseBlink, our mission is to reimagine how immigration cases are prepared, using AI to handle the heavy lifting and giving teams time back where it matters most. Today, we’re raising the bar.
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🚀" Apply to join our exclusive Beta: https://lnkd.in/e8XYuvP6​

Purchasing/Using Legal Tech

◾ The headline on a post from Legaltech News (LTN): "Some Federal Judges Are Embracing Gen AI, Though Many Are Split on Its Potential for Courts"

Excerpts from the LTN's post:

"The study, published Monday in The Sedona Conference Journal, was based on a survey of 112 federal judges, which included 43 district court judges, 32 magistrate judges, 31 bankruptcy judges and six appellate judges, all serving as of August 2025.

"The survey looked to ascertain judges’ use of 12 specifical generative AI tools—six general purpose offerings and six legal tech platforms.

"While over 38% of responding judges said they never used gen AI tools for work, almost 20% said they used such technology monthly, while 17% said they use it weekly, followed by around 5% who leveraged gen AI daily for work. An additional 20% noted they rarely use the technology."

Read the entire LTN post at the link below:

​https://www.law.com/2026/03/30/some-federal-judges-are-embracing-gen-ai-though-many-are-split-on-its-potential-for-courts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_content=20260331&utm_campaign=morningminute&utm_term=law&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&user_id=5a62392218ff43ec508b502b&slreturn=20260331084526​

◾ Artificial Lawyer (AL) asks: How do AI-native law firms work? And, in answer to that question, AL posts a video that can be accessed here: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/03/31/how-do-ai-native-law-firms-work/?jetpack_skip_subscription_popup​

From the AL post:

"You’ve probably heard a lot about how AI-native, NewMod law firms are changing the game. But how do they work? How do you make a profit on fixed fees? And what kind of lawyers are they hiring? Artificial Lawyer talks to General Legal’s co-founder JP Mohler about all of this and more."

◾ Legal IT Insider posts about a a podcast where Caroline Hill interviews two senior Harvey representatives and a senior operations leader at law firm client Dentsu to discuss agentic AI and collaboration in the AI age.
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From the Legal IT Insider post (where you can also access the podcast episode)
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“Together we took a dive into what agentic AI is – and isn’t; where Dentsu is in that journey; and where the market is collectively on the agentic AI curve. We saw a demo of Harvey’s SharedSpaces collaboration platform and discussed how and where agentic AI and SharedSpaces converge.”
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​https://legaltechnology.com/2026/04/02/webinar-replay-inside-harveys-ai-agents-shared-spaces/​

Teaching/Learning Legal Tech

◾ A post from Legaltech News (LTN) about the Goodwin law firm's very thoughtful approach to firm-wide AI training:
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"Artificial intelligence training programs are often structured as one-off events, but some law firms are thinking of AI adoption and training as longer-term challenges. That’s the approach Goodwin Procter has taken with Propel, a new firmwide AI training program rolled out this year. The firm hopes the initiative can improve the value of representation it provides to clients and perhaps lead to higher hourly rates."
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Of note from the post:
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"Goodwin plans to rely on three indicators to gauge the success of the program. The firm hopes to see more than 90% of employees using AI tools in their day-to-day work by the end of 2026, as measured by surveys and usage dashboards. It also aims to measure the efficiency of work performed with AI quantitatively and qualitatively, as well as the firm’s ability to leverage its transactional data to deliver insights to clients more quickly."
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Read the entire LTN post at this link: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/04/01/better-service-and-higher-rates-inside-goodwins-ambitious-ai-training-program-/​