August 25, 2025 -- Issue #356

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

Sponsorships:

The Legal Tech StartUp Focus (LTSF) community's platform (this newsletter, the podcast, and the community's website and LinkedIn following) is now accepting sponsors for the fall. If you are interested in reaching LTSF's audience of startup leaders and other legal innovators, send me an email at charlie@legaltechstartupfocus.com.

Compensation​
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Conferences and Other Events

◾ I'm delighted to report that I, along with Matt Kerbis of Subscription Attorney, Maya Markovichof MM Consulting, and Dennis Kennedy, of Michigan State University College of Law, will be a panelist at an upcoming webinar (taking place on September 4, 2025): Growing Your Originations: How to Become a Rainmaker 2025/The Future of Legal Tech.

As webinar moderator, Steve Fretzin of Fretzin Inc. puts it in his LinkedIn post :

"Whether you're a lawyer, advisor, or other professional service provider, you'll gain real-world insights into how to improve efficiency, enhance client experience, and grow your practice. Our panel will cut through the hype to focus on what's working now—and what’s coming next. If you're looking to future-proof your business, this session is a must-attend."

Subscribers to CeriFi LegalEdge (f/k/a West Legal Ed Center) can register to attend. Further, if you do not subscribe to CeriFi LegalEdge, you may watch this webinar on demand on FinancialPoise.com within a few weeks after its premiere on West.

The registration link to attend this webinar is https://lnkd.in/etRgU9pd. You can read Steve Fretzin's entire LinkedIn post here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/financial-poise_attorneys-accountants-and-other-trusted-activity-7363924532610441216-xHq3?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAACjKkUBuYvfoBWwBGd7KKABZw3jrdiBcc0​

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Exit/M&A

◾ From Bloomberg Law:

"Burford Capital is eyeing new territory after investing in lawsuits for nearly two decades: The litigation funder wants to buy stakes in US law firms.

"Burford is pitching the idea of purchasing a minority stake to several US law firms, according to Travis Lenkner, its chief development officer. The funder is angling itself as an alternative to private equity companies already backing some firms through deals to provide back office services."

Read the article for insight into how Burford (and other potential investors in laws) work around US law firm ownership restrictions - "managed service organizations" anyone? We also know, of course, that certain states in the US are relaxing ownership restrictions, and certain nations (such as the UK) have pretty much done away with such restrictions. For me, what's of even greater interest is answering the question: What will the legal tech profile (which apps, what in-firm adoption rates) look like for law firms that attract investment from PE firms, litigation funders, and others?

​https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/burford-aims-to-buy-stakes-in-us-law-firms-rival-private-equity?source=newsletter&item=read-text&region=digest&login=blaw​

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◾ From Legal Tech News:
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“On Tuesday [August 19. 2025] digital forensics and cybersecurity provider Lineal announced its acquisition of ProFile Discovery, an Ohio-based e-discovery and digital forensics provider.
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“With the acquisition, Lineal aims to provide customers with expanded offerings including in-house trial support capabilities and extended expertise in Reveal, among other digital forensics and cyber incident response services.”
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​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/08/20/-e-discovery-cybersecurity-company-lineal-acquires-e-discovery-provider-profile-discovery/​

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Fundraising

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Hiring/New Hires​
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◾ Legal IT Insider reporging;

"Texas-headquartered Am Law 200 firm Jackson Walker has promoted longtime technology leader Bill Finner to chief information officer and chief knowledge services officer Greg Lambert as its first-ever chief innovation officer." Congratulations to Bill and Greg.

​https://legaltechnology.com/2025/08/20/jackson-walker-promotes-bill-finner-to-cio-and-greg-lambert-to-cino/​

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Honors and Awards

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Incubators/Accelerators​
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◾ Startup accelerators - I've spoken to many legal tech startup leaders who have had exceptionally good ROI from having their startup become part of an accelerator program. So, I am very pleased that Russ Korin of the Cohen Tauber Spievack & Wagner law firm in New York City welcomed the idea of my sharing his email with the LTSF community. As you'll see below, Russ is hosting an online fireside chat that, among other things, aims to answer these questions: "how founders should evaluate any potential accelerator, what they can expect to gain, and how to make the most of the experience once enrolled."

Really, no brainer here - do attend the fireside chat.

Here's Russ's email:

"My next fireside chat (registration here) will be on the topic of accelerators. My guest will be Vance Dekker of Techstars, who will discuss how founders and founding teams can assess whether an accelerator may be right for them. This 30-minute session will be recorded, so register even if you are not certain you can attend live. Feel free to share this with anyone else who may be interested:
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"Accelerators: Are They Right for You?
A Fireside Chat with Vance Dekker, Techstars
Tuesday, September 16, 11:00 – 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time
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"For a growing venture, the right accelerator can deliver significant value with finding product-market fit, knowledge from experience, connections, and access to capital. But these benefits depend on the right fit between the venture and the accelerator. How can founders and founding teams determine if an accelerator is right for them?
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"To offer guidance and best practices, we have Vance Dekker of Techstars. In a conversation with CTSW attorney Russ Korins, Vance will work from his experience in the Techstars accelerator program to share his observations about which ventures find the most value from an accelerator experience and why. We will extrapolate these observations to the general question of how founders should evaluate any potential accelerator, what they can expect to gain, and how to make the most of the experience once enrolled.
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"Founders, investors, advisors, and anyone else interested in this topic are welcome to attend. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_flF_zE6zSiGjFeekPB5yug "

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Investing

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JusticeTech/A2J

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LegalEd

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LTSF Site and Membership Matters

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Marketing Legal Tech

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Member Introductions/Questions

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Partnerships/Business Development​
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◾ Legal Tech News has posted an article about legal tech startups that have gotten some serious backing (by way of investment, business partnerships, etc) from some serious law firms and other tech companies. Here’s a link to the very article.
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​https://www.law.com/international-edition/2025/08/17/from-ao-shearmans-fuse-to-clearys-springbok-10-legal-tech-startups-firms-are-betting-on/​

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Product Development

◾ Legal IT Insider goes deeply into Intapp’s ILTACon announcements:
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“Intapp’s company briefing at ILTACON 2025 last week homed in on three areas of note: the company’s ability to support and leverage AI across the entire lifecycle of a law firm; its new release of Intapp Time Horizon, incorporating GenAI functionality; and the growing gap between on premises and cloud capabilities.” https://legaltechnology.com/2025/08/18/intapps-company-briefing-new-intapp-time-launch-and-cloud-updates/​

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◾ Joel Bijlmer of The Legal Wire posts: "Six junior associates enter the AI arbitration room.

"In our exclusive interview with CEO Aram Aghababyan, we explore how CaseLens is redefining arbitration prep with AI associates that build chronologies, tag exhibits, and verify citations with near-obsessive precision.

"The question now is: will AI become the first associate briefed by every arbitration lawyer?

Full story here: https://thelegalwire.ai/caselens-meet-the-ai-junior-associates-rewriting-arbitration-prep/ "

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◾ From the LawSites blog:

"Pre/Dicta, a legal analytics company that specializes in predictive modeling of judicial decision-making, today announced a significant expansion of its platform featuring new appellate forecasting capabilities, enhanced biographical intelligence tools, and comparative prediction features across judges, venues and law firms."

​https://www.lawnext.com/2025/08/legal-analytics-platform-pre-dicta-expands-its-judicial-modeling-adding-appellate-forecasting-enhanced-biographical-analysis-and-comparative-predictions.html​

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◾ As Legal Tech News explains in the article lined below, enterprising college undergraduates (undergraduates!!) are building a legal tech startup, called Lawdie, that’s aimed at smaller law firms:
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From the article:
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“Legal tech founders tend to come from a small set of backgrounds, such as ex-lawyers, former startup entrepreneurs, and occasionally law students. Lawdie, an integrated artificial intelligence-powered platform for small practices, is a rare exception: a legal tech startup built by undergrads.
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“The company was founded by Sanay Shajith and Meeth Naik, juniors at Georgia Tech studying industrial engineering and computer science, respectively. The two founded Lawdie in September 2024, and are taking the fall 2025 semester off from school to grow the company.”
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​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/08/19/georgia-tech-students-are-building-an-ai-powered-platform-for-small-firms-and-solo-practitioners/​

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Purchasing/Using Legal Tech

◾ A good discussion by Legal IT Insider about how (1) GenAI-driven agents and (2) data integration played a large role in the discussions with legal tech vendors and their customers at the just-concluded ILTACon.
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​https://legaltechnology.com/2025/08/21/iltacon-2025-the-vendor-briefings-agents-ecosystems-and-the-next-stage-of-maturity/​

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◾ Legal Tech News tells us:
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“Earlier this summer, Littler Mendelson wrapped up the third edition of its Innovate 100 competition—a 100-day contest designed to identify process improvements.
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“Littler is one of an increasing number of law firms that are hosting programs to promote design thinking and innovation internally. While many such events are built for summer associates, Littler’s Innovate 100 competition is open to all associates and counsel across the firm.”
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Gamify innovation at law firms. Sure - why not!!
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​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/08/21/how-littler-uses-competition-to-drive-attorneys-innovation-and-design-thinking/​

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◾ From Legal Tech New comes this week’a legal tech rundown, featuring hiring news, partnership developments and product launches.

And, I mention this separately because I very much like Alex Su’s online writing, there’s also an announcement of a new online video series:

“Continuing legal education (CLE) provider Practising Law Institute (PLI) and Stanford Law School on Aug. 12 launched a new CLE-accredited video series hosted by legal influencer Alex Su. “Under Review with Alex Su” will feature monthly conversations with attorneys, legal academics and business leaders, and each episode will include three segments, a discussion of a legal topic in the news, an introduction to an idea from the legal academy, and a conversation with a practitioner.”

​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/08/22/legaltech-rundown-legalzoom-offers-patent-filing-affinipay-rebrands-as-8am-and-more/​

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◾ From Artificial Lawyer:

"It’s a UK Bank Holiday on Monday, so AL’s taking a long weekend while the sun still shines. See you on Tuesday, Aug 26th. But, before then, here’s three surveys and an important client win."

​https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/08/21/spotdraft-structureflow-bighand-eudia-clausepilot/​

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Regulatory Reform​
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Revenue Model/Pricing

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Selling Legal Tech

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Startup Life

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Startup Management

◾ Legal Tech News, with an article about how some legal tech vendors are expanding their product features/offerings beyond the niche/one-point solutions that these vendors went to market with initially. A discussion of trade-off’s in undertaking this kind of expansion (for both the vendors and their customers), as well as insightful comments from Zach Abramowitz.
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“Several major legal tech companies have recently moved into new verticals, including practice management provider Clio’s move into legal research with the purchase of vLex, and contract review company LegalOn’s expansion into matter management. But why now?”
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​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/08/20/why-are-legal-tech-vendors-expanding-into-new-product-lines/​

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Teaching/Learning Legal Tech

◾ Bloomberg Law posts:

"Incidents of AI-generated errors in legal citations have increased the pressure on law schools to teach responsible use of the technology.

"The University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale law schools are among those augmenting curricula. In new or updated classes, schools are training their students to understand the AI tools’ limitations and to check their work."

"Students at Harvard Law School last year cited the lack of AI integration into coursework and the rapid development of the technology as the reasons they created the Harvard Law Artificial Intelligence Student Association. With about 250 subscribers, it explores the ethical, legal, and societal impacts of AI."

When it comes to the so-called elite law schools (and paraphrasing sci-fi/cyberpunk author William Gibson): "The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed" (looking at you, HLS).

​https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/top-law-schools-boost-ai-training-as-legal-citation-errors-grow?source=newsletter&item=body-link&region=text-section​

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◾ Legal Tech News reporting:

In the wish-I-had-this-when-I-was-a-law- student category -

"On Thursday, legal research platform Cubby launched its generative artificial intelligence assistant Cubby Law for law school students.

"Cubby was founded in 2023 by Truman Sacks, who was formerly senior product manager at resale company StockX as well as CEO and founder of inventory management platform Scout. Cubby Law aims to assist and provide course resources for law school students studying for final exams.

"What it is: Cubby Law is a gen AI-powered legal assistant that provides study tools and resources to prepare law school students for final exams."

​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/08/21/research-platform-releases-cubby-law-gen-ai-assistant-for-law-school-students-/?kw=Research+Platform+Releases+Cubby+Law+Gen+AI+Assistant+for+Law+School+Students&utm_position=2&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=morningupdate&utm_content=20250822&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&slreturn=20250822090754​

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