December 8, 2025 — Issue #371

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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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.

Exit/M&A

◾ In the article linked below (published in The Review from VC firm, First Round), we find an analysis of a merger involving two successful tech companies that, well, has so far worked!! Someday, as a startup leader, you may decide to buy or sell. If and when that day comes, what you learn from this article may help.

From the article:

"Bob Moore, co-founder and CEO of ecosystem revenue platform company Crossbeam, knew the odds of a successful merger were against him. But he also knew the high rate at which startups fail in general. So when he saw the opportunity to materially change the trajectory of his company by merging with its fast-growing competitor, Reveal, it was a decision he didn’t take lightly.

"From the outside, between vague headlines and PR talking points, M&A is inscrutable. And if you’ve never run a deal process yourself, you might be surprised at the sheer number of details to make it work. In this essay, Moore goes into extreme detail about every aspect of the odds-beating merger — its structure, the values they created, messaging, how they migrated thousands of customers and much more. We thought the best person to tell that story was Moore himself. "https://review.firstround.com/the-merger-playbook/?title=&ref=the-review-newsletter​

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◾ Bloomberg Law reporting:

"Another litigation funder is investing in the law firm space, by taking over a managed service organization to provide pre-litigation support for mass tort and personal injury firms.

"Texas-based Certum Group, which specializes in litigation finance and related insurance offerings, acquired a managed service organization in October. Rechristened Certum Legal Solutions, the MSO has already partnered with several firms working on a fees for services basis, but will consider acquiring stakes in law firms down the road, said Certum Group’s managing director David Diamond."https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/litigation-funder-certum-launches-mso-aimed-at-mass-tort-firms?source=newsletter&item=body-link®ion=text-section​

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Fundraising

◾ From a post on the siliconAngle website:

"Soxton AI, an artificial intelligence-first law firm targeting early-stage founders and startups, launched today with $2.5 million in preseed funding.

"The round was led by Moxxie Ventures, with participation from Strobe, Coalition, Caterina Fake and Flex.

"Founded by Chief Executive Logan Brown, a Harvard graduate and former lawyer at Cooley LLP, Soxton seeks to democratize access to legal services for startup founders and sweep away the complexity of legal proceedings using AI automation."https://siliconangle.com/2025/12/02/soxton-emerges-2-5m-build-lawyer-loop-ai-startup-legal-work/?utm_source=newsletter.strictlyvc.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=svc-beehiiv&_bhlid=575274840ad2b412956b11737f100fdc9c1655f8​

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◾ A post from Artificial Lawyer:
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“Curvestone AI, a workflow automation platform with a strong consultative aspect, has raised $4m in Seed funding led by MTech Capital. It’s known for working with firms such as Walker Morris, Stephenson Harwood and Browne Jacobson.
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“Before raising external funding ‘Curvestone reached profitability and grew revenue 7x in 12 months’, they said. The platform now processes ‘billions of tokens quarterly’ across legal and financial services workflows, they noted.”
​https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/12/04/curvestone-ai-bags-4m-seed-for-workflow-automation/​

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Hiring/New Hires​
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◾ “Movers and shakers” hiring news from Legal IT Insider:
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“Leading UK law firm Farrer & Co has appointed Rod Fripp from Capsticks as its new IT director and Oliver Jeffcott from Macfarlanes as its head of innovation and AI, effective today (1 December 2025).”
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$$Quote: “Farrer & Co is famous for its Elite clients, including the royal family, and large corporates such as News International. It has long had a cloud-first strategy and selected NetDocuments in 2014. Last year it selected Peppermint Technology (now part of Clio) to replace LexisNexis Interaction and has been investing heavily in its Microsoft stack. This year the firm was recognised by NetDocuments as the Inspire Award EMEA winner for its commitment to innovation.”
​https://legaltechnology.com/2025/12/01/farrer-co-appoints-new-it-director-and-new-head-of-innovation-and-ai/​

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◾ Hiring news from Legaltech News:

"15-Year Microsoft Veteran Joins KKR-Backed Agiloft as CLO

"Jason Barnwell is joining the maker of CLM software at a critical juncture for it and the legal tech industry. “It’s magical when you see someone with a really hard job find their life getting a little bit better because of something you made for them. I want more of that," he said."

Very best wishes to Jason in his new role!!https://www.law.com/corpcounsel/2025/12/02/15-year-microsoft-veteran-joins-kkr-backed-agiloft-as-clo/​

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◾ LawSites reporting:
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“The Masters Conference, an education and thought leadership forum focused on e-discovery, litigation, information governance, AI and related disciplines for legal professionals, has named legal industry veteran Kevin Vermeulen as its new chief executive officer.
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“Masters also announced that Mike Dalewitz, a veteran e-discovery entrepreneur and former advisor to The Masters Conference, is returning to the organization as its executive chairman.”
​https://www.lawnext.com/2025/12/the-masters-conference-names-legal-industry-veterans-kevin-vermeulen-as-ceo-and-mike-dalewitz-as-chairman-plans-2026-rebrand-and-refocus.html​

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◾ How do very, VERY, early–stage startups attract the best new hires? Here's a post from the Sifted newsletter that addresses this question.
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From the post:
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"When you're early -- pre-launch, low brand, maybe even in stealth -- it can feel like a paradox: you want the best people in the world to come build with you, but you don't have much to show them yet. Previously, it was easy for a startup's talent brand to be built on massive funding rounds and a hot space alone. But in an AI bubble where capital is flowing, this just isn't enough.
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"Today, standing out for early-stage companies means more than splashy press or well-written job descriptions. Elite talent doesn't follow companies, it follows signals. And early-stage, low-brand startups can still win -- if your founder-led signal is strong enough. So it starts with you."
​https://sifted.eu/articles/attract-top-ai-talent-first-time-founder​

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◾ New product offerings, new hires, new business partnerships, and some other new stuff in this week’s Legaltech News rundown.
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/12/05/legaltech-rundown-thomson-reuters-partners-with-imperial-london-college-to-launch-ai-lab-neostella-announces-case-management-platform-and-more-/​

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Investing

◾ Reporting from Legaltech News on Orrick's investment in The Legal Tech Fund's second fund:

"Amid a funding boom for legal tech, law firms and other end users have taken on increasingly prominent roles as investorsin the legal tech companies that serve them.

"That trend continued with the November launch of The LegalTech Fund’s second investment fund, which included participation from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and McDermott Will & Schulte, alongside legal tech companies, service providers, and investment groups."

$$Quote: “'It is central to our strategy to provide best-in-class technology to our colleagues and our clients,' Orrick chief innovation officer Wendy Butler Curtis told Legaltech News. 'Our collaboration and investment with The LegalTech Fund allows us to do that at a scale that we couldn't do on our own.'”

​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/12/04/why-orrick-backed-the-legaltech-funds-new-investment-vehicle-/?kw=Why+Orrick+Backed+The+LegalTech+Fund%27s+New+Investment+Vehicle&utm_position=1&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=morningupdate&utm_content=20251205&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&slreturn=20251205094911​

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JusticeTech/A2J

◾ From the LawSites blog by Robert Ambrogi:
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“Fewer than four months after the University of Chicago Law School announced it would be launching an AI Lab, a course designed to teach law students how to build generative AI tools to help people who cannot afford an attorney, the 10 students in the lab’s inaugural class have developed and launched their first product.
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“Called LeaseChat, it is a free AI tool designed to help renters across the United States analyze their leases and understand their legal rights. With more than 40 million rented properties nationwide, the tool aims to level the playing field for tenants navigating complex lease agreements and landlord-tenant law.”
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Kudos to my law school Alma Mater for offering this A2J tool!!
​https://www.lawnext.com/2025/12/university-of-chicago-law-school-ai-lab-launches-leasechat-a-free-tool-to-help-renters-understand-their-leases-and-legal-rights.html​

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Member Introductions/Questions

◾ Community member, Alan Yahya posts an introduction: "Hi all. I joined LTSF around 6 months ago, so time to write an intro. I'm one of the founders of Lexifina, which is developing practice automation for solos and mid-size firms. Open to informal discussion on tech and implementation, or a partnership collaboration- drop me a line at linkedin.com/in/alan-yahya/

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◾ And here, new community member, Harshith Viswanath, makes her introduction to fellow community members: "Hi all, I'm a law student who's interested in LegalTech. I write my own blog in substack where I analyze and break down LegalTech trends. I'm currently working as a content write as well for LegalTech Asia wherein I write on LegalTech and build insight on this sector and where opportunity for building lies. Open to having insightful discussions on LegalTech [www.linkedin.com/in/harshithviswanath]. ​Here's the link to my blog for those interested: https://harshithviswanath.substack.com/ "

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Product Development

◾ Legal tech scale-up, Harvey (you've heard of them, haven't you?) put up a LinkedIn post that's linked below. From the post:

"Today, Harvey is announcing two major updates.
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"We’re introducing new collaboration features in Harvey. Shared Spaces enable legal teams to collaborate securely across organizations. Guest accounts make collaboration possible even with clients who aren’t Harvey customers. Shareable resources make it easy to share Harvey work products directly with external parties, including Artifacts, Tools, and Data, all individually governable and auditable by an administrator.
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"You can learn more and watch the overview here: https://lnkd.in/ecC-KsKq​
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"In addition, Harvey has reached a new milestone with a $160M Series F led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from new investors WndrCo and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and continued support from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Conviction, and Elad Gil. This news follows a recent investment from EQT Group."

I've long been interested in the sort of collaboration features that Harvey just announced. In fact, this announcement aligns with what I learned from Harvey reps at several legal tech conferences I've attended over the past two months. Having the ability to bring non-Harvey customers who are parties to a deal that's being managed by a "Harvey law firm" is something I would have wanted to use when I practiced. With the proper permissioning rules in place (very important, to say the least), having counterparty counsel, as well as third parties on "my side" of the deal (bankers, accountants, appraisers, local and special subject-matter counsel, etc.), getting access to the Harvey deal project pages would have made doing the deal much more efficient. Kudos to Havey for this feature offering.

Oh, and congrats to Harvey on that Series F raise that's also mentioned in Harvey's LinkedIn post.

​https://www.linkedin.com/posts/harvey-ai_today-harvey-is-announcing-two-major-updates-activity-7402337645416062977-fQk8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAACjKkUBuYvfoBWwBGd7KKABZw3jrdiBcc0​

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◾ From materials accompanying the EvenUp press release dated today, December 4, 2025:
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"EvenUp Unveils Medical Management and AI Communication Agents Across the Case Lifecycle to Prioritize Client Outreach and Increase Recoveries
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"For personal injury law firms, medical management is a critical yet often overlooked challenge. Plaintiffs have a short window to receive care while insurance is active, but firms have limited visibility into treatment progress, relying on heavy manual data entry across large caseloads. This means costly gaps often surface only after they’ve reduced case value. EvenUp closes this gap with real-time medical tracking and AI-driven client follow-up."
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The entire press release is accessible at this link: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/94602124?utm_source=manual​

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Purchasing/Using Legal Tech

◾ From Ari Kaplan writing at Legaltech News:
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“I [author Ari Kaplan] was fortunate to engage 31 attorneys, 71% of whom were partners at large law firms across the United States, in detailed conversations about their work during the summer of 2025, which revealed a striking disconnect between the accessibility and application of new tools, and the growing need for specific case strategy technology, offering litigators AI-driven tools that enhance trial preparation, align disconnected workflows, and facilitate advanced advocacy.
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“The objective of the research was to understand how litigators and trial lawyers are leveraging technology to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving legal environment. The report summarizing the findings, ‘The Emergence of Case Strategy Technology as a Competitive Advantage in an Evolving Litigation Landscape,’ focuses on market trends, case strategy approaches, the impact of case management software, and AI use cases, among other topics. It reveals a convergence of operational challenges, growing technology adoption, and the strategic imperative to embrace AI, pointing to the emergence of a new category of case strategy software.”
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For more analysis of his findings from Ari and for access to his report, visit this link: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/11/26/the-emergence-of-case-strategy-technology-as-a-competitive-advantage/​

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◾ Reporting from Legaltech News:

"Fastcase, a legal research technology company owned by practice management software provider Clio, on Nov. 26 filed a lawsuit accusing Toronto-based legal artificial intelligence startup Alexi of building its platform based on unauthorized use of information from Fastcase's legal database."

​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/12/02/clio-owned-legal-research-company-fastcase-sues-legal-ai-startup-alexi/?kw=Clio-Owned+Legal+Research+Company+Fastcase+Sues+Legal+AI+Startup+Alexi&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=newsroomupdate&utm_content=20251202&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A​

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◾ Epsidoe 79 of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus Podcast -- How Filevine Turns Legal Work into Operating Intelligence.

What if your legal stack worked like a true operating system—one place for documents, deadlines, tasks, client messages, and billing—and then used that context to power AI that actually helps? We sit down with Michael Anderson, Chief Product Officer at Filevine (https://www.filevine.com/), to explore how “owning” matter operations unlocks real gains in speed, accuracy, and collaboration without sacrificing control.

Link to the podcast episode here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2454829/episodes/18294708​

And the episode's show notes available here: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/94555605?utm_source=manual​

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◾ The post linked below is from Artificial Lawyer:
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“It’s the last webinar of the year and statistically it could be a winner! Artificial Lawyer is partnering with Spellbook to explore ‘The Moneyball Moment for Contracts: Data-Driven Negotiation with AI’. It will take place live on Dec 16 – 6PM UK / 1PM EST / 10AM PST.
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“It’s free to attend, but please RSVP here.”
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“Presented live with Spellbook’s CEO, Scott Stevenson, and Artificial Lawyer’s Founder, Richard Tromans, we’ll explore the Moneyball concept in relation to contracting, market data, and the power of AI.
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“And in the legal context, this means that AI is unlocking contract market data at an unprecedented scale, finally giving lawyers a concrete answer to the question: ‘What is market?’ We explore how to tap this and what it means for lawyers today.”
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There gold in them thar contract data “hills,” so law firms and in-house legal departments, its past time for you to mine it!! https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/12/05/webinar-moneyball-for-contracts-data-driven-negotiation-dec-16/​

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Startup Management

◾ "Could Forward Deployed Engineers work in legal?

"Forward‑deployed engineers are having another moment. Palantir made the idea famous years ago, and AI‑native companies have revived it. The appeal is obvious. Put an engineer inside the customer environment, see real work up close, and turn those insights into product improvements. Law firms (and professional services in general) are no strangers to embedded resources, and on the surface, the model feels like a tight fit.

"But proximity alone does not create value. What makes the FDE model powerful is autonomy. An embedded engineer who can observe how work really happens and then change the product in response is doing something different from traditional customer engagement. Proximity gives context, and autonomy turns context into progress."

There's a bit of talk in legal tech about legal tech vendors deploying so-called "forward deployed engineers (FDE)." Good explainer at the link below on what that's all about, including a description of the difference between the FDE approach and what the authors call the "customization" approach.https://www.fringelegal.com/could-forward-deployed-engineers-work-in-legal/?ref=fringe-legal-newsletter​

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◾ Below is a link to a LinkedIn post by Nikki Shaver, one of the co-founders of Legaltech Hub. In the LinkedIn post, Nikki offers what one of the commenters on the post calls "helpful challenges" for AI-driven legal tech vendors. A very good post, and some very helpful comments on that post, can be found at the link below.
​https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nicola-shaver_legaltech-ai-genai-activity-7401976116866936832-zRwD?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAACjKkUBuYvfoBWwBGd7KKABZw3jrdiBcc0​

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◾ A link below to a LinkedIn post from Nikki Shaver of Legaltech Hub. This post contains a very handy (and important) checklist of things that legal tech vendors should most definitely keep in mind when designing product features and when pitching to prospective customers.
​https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nicola-shaver_legaltech-legaltech-legal-activity-7397616024071819264-ia46?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAACjKkUBuYvfoBWwBGd7KKABZw​

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