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December 29, 2025 -- Issue #374

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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🎉 A HAPPY, HEALTHY, AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR TO ALL 🎉

Exit/M&A

◾ The LawSites blog from Robert Ambrogi posts:
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“Legal technology company Filevine has acquired Pincites, an AI-powered contract redlining company, in a deal that moves the company further into corporate and transactional law, complementing its strong presence in litigation, and that furthers its AI strategy.”
​https://www.lawnext.com/2025/12/exclusive-filevine-acquires-pincites-ai-powered-contract-redlining-company-strengthening-its-positioning-for-corporate-legal-and-enhancing-its-ai.html​

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◾ A Legaltech New post to give us a retrospective on 2025’s notable legal tech M&A activity. From the post:
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“Here's a look at what Legaltech News saw as the biggest mergers and acquisitions in legal tech this year.” https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/12/22/big-bets-bigger-companies-the-biggest-legal-tech-mas-in-2025-/​
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Fundraising

◾ Legaltech News has put up a post captioned:
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“The Legal Tech Startups Funded by Google-Backed Venture Firms in 2025”
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From the post:
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“Google Ventures is the investment capital arm of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, which aims to provide funding in tech companies’ seed and series rounds. Gradient Ventures is a venture fund that is also backed by Alphabet and supports artificial intelligence-focused tech companies.
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“Here are some of the legal tech companies Google Ventures and Gradient Ventures have backed in 2025.”
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Read the entire post at this link: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/12/23/the-legal-tech-startups-funded-by-google-backed-venture-firms-in-2025-/​

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◾ From Legaltech News:
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“2025 was a big year for legal tech startup investment, featuring everything from new companies raising pre-seed support to bigger players pulling in nine-figure funding rounds. While backing came from an array of venture capital firms, private equity outfits, industry incumbents and law firms, some investors were more active than others. [Here] are eight of the most active legal tech funders in 2025.” https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/12/26/the-8-most-active-legal-tech-investors-of-2025-/​

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◾ Legaltech News continues its reporting on the legal tech investing scene in 2025; here by reporting on legal tech startups that received investments from law firms and lawyers.
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From the Legaltech News report:
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“Although venture capital firms tend to be the primary investors in legal tech startups, 2025 saw law firms and lawyers contribute a fair amount to legal tech funding rounds. Law firms make these investments in different ways and for various reasons. They may make investments directly or invest in venture capital funds that focus on the legal tech field. Law firms may invest if they believe in a company’s product, or it aligns with their mission.
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“Here are legal tech companies that law firms and lawyers have funded in 2025.”
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/12/26/legal-tech-companies-that-received-law-firm-lawyer-investments-in-2025-/​

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Product Development

◾ From community member, Abem Menbere: "Hey folks we built a super simple, fast e-sign tool that’s now being used by thousands. Lately, we’ve seen a big surge in people in the legal industry chatting directly with their documents.

"Think ChatGPT + DocuSign, all in one place, with standard security best practices.

"Would love to get some honest feedback from this community.

"Check it out: app.yanna.pro/welcome"

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Purchasing/Using Legal Tech

◾ Year 2025 lookbacks begin. Here's Legaltech News posting: "What's on Legal's Mind This Year? A Look at LTN's Top Stories From 2025"

From the post:

"The rapid pace of change within the legal tech industry hasn’t slowed down in 2025. Vendors and law firms alike developed new artificial intelligence tools, with agentic AI, in particular, taking center stage. Law firms also worked closely with legal tech providers to spur innovation, focused on training future attorneys on the skills necessary in the AI era, and struggled with managing generative AI risks, leading to some high-profile blunders.

"To catch up on the biggest areas of interest from 2025, here are Legaltech News’ most-read articles from the last 12 months."

Go to this link to read those top stories:

​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/12/22/whats-on-legals-mind-this-year-a-look-at-ltns-top-stories-from-2025-/?kw=What%27s+on+Legal%27s+Mind+This+Year?+A+Look+at+LTN%27s+Top+Stories+From+2025&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=newsroomupdate&utm_content=20251222&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A​

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Startup Management

◾ A post from Legaltech News with an overview of the litigation brought by Clio's Fastcase against Alexi. From the post:

"Earlier this month, Fastcase accused Alexi of using data shared under a data licensing agreement to build its own legal research platform and begin publishing and distributing Fastcase-sourced case law directly to customers. Fastcase asserted that these uses of the data were in violation of the terms of the agreement between the companies, which Alexi denied. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of the District of the District of Columbia denied Alexi’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have compelled Fastcase to restore Alexi’s access to the database.

"(In response to a request for comment on the denial of the restraining order, Fastcase parent company Clio referred Legaltech News to the arguments in Fastcase’s court filings. Alexi CEO Mark Doble told Legaltech News that, despite being unable to prove irreparable harm from the temporary loss of the data feed, 'We remain confident—increasingly so—about the merits on the alleged breach of contract.')"

The entire post can be found here: https://www.law.com/2025/12/19/fastcases-suit-against-alexi-highlights-perils-of-data-licensing-agreements-for-legal-ai/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_content=20251222&utm_campaign=morningminute&utm_term=law&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A​

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◾ Harvey publishes a post captioned "Centralize and Customize Legal Tools With MCP."

"Harvey is adopting MCP to more easily integrate with a customer’s preferred tools and third-party systems and give users greater control in building with Harvey."

Lengthy, but worth the time read, from the Harvey team discussing what the Model Context Protocol (whether used in connection with Harvey as the host of an MCP client or an MCP server) can bring to broaden Harvey's integration stack and, therefore, to increase Harvey's utility to its customers. https://www.harvey.ai/blog/harvey-mcp-overview​

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◾ How Legal Tech Startup, Abstract, Turns Laws And Regulations Into Actionable Strategy - Episode 80 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast

Charlie Uniman, your podcast host, and Pat Utz, CEO and co-founder of Abstract (https://www.abstract.us/), explore how Abstract turns legislative and regulatory noise into real-time, client-specific strategy, and why deterministic workflows beat agentic dreams for now. Pat shares candid lessons on funding, traction, hiring, and building a product that actually moves the needle.
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• origins in AI research and mission to make government transparent
• proactive monitoring of bills, regulations, executive orders, and local agendas
• real-time enrichment with client context to flag risks and opportunities
• strategy layer and workflows that move from alert to outreach
• planned expansion into judicial opinions to shape case law awareness
• enterprise focus with long-term goal of a consumer version
• founder advice on VC vs bootstrapping, traction before funding, and hiring fit

Link to this podcast episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2454829/episodes/18407677​

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