January 12, 2026 - Issue #376
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
◾ From the Axios “Pro Rata” newsletter today, January 8, 2026:
Haveli Investments acquired a majority stake in Sirion, a Lehi, Utah-based provider of contract lifecycle management solutions, at around a $1b valuation. Sirion had raised over $180m from firms like Partners Group, Tiger Global, Avatar Growth Capital, Morgan Stanley, and Peak XV Partners. https://www.reuters.com/business/haveli-buy-majority-stake-contract-software-firm-sirion-2026-01-08/
Fundraising
◾ Posting at Artificial Lawyer, Raymond Blyd, CEO of data-tracking and analysis firm LegalComplex, writes about fundraising in legal tech last year. From the post:
“Legal tech funding in 2025 reached $5.99 billion and featured fourteen $100m+ rounds, with extraordinary valuations and remarkable revenue growth – for some companies. But, not all. At the same time, Robin AI ran into funding troubles. Meanwhile, dozens of other legal tech companies globally, which had raised capital between 2020 and 2023, have not raised capital again since then.”
Access Raymond’s full post here: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/01/06/legal-tech-raised-6bn-in-2025-as-ai-boom-shows-divisions/
◾ Happy to share the fundraising news from Belgium-based Alice, a legal tech startup that, as described in the press release announcing the raise, embeds ". . . AI directly into professional legal workflows where verification, traceability, and human control are non-negotiable." Also from the press release:
"Alice, an AI platform built by lawyers for lawyers and legal teams, has raised €1 million in pre-seed funding to rethink legal casework from end to end. The round was led by NewSchool and Seeder Fund, with participation from a group of experienced Belgian angel investors."
Hearty congratulations to the Alice team on closing the funding round. The entire press release can be accessed at this link: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/96156490?utm_source=manual
Hiring/New Hires
◾ From a Legal IT Insider post, women appointed to senior roles at Harvey, Elite, Menlo Ventures, and Mishcon de Reya. From the post:
"The start of 2026 has brought news of a welcome series of female leadership appointments and promotions in the legal tech arena, including a new chief operating officer at Harvey; a new chief human resources officer at Elite; a new GC relationship director at Mishcon de Reya; and a new partner at AI venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, which has a broad portfolio of investments including in legal tech company Eve." https://legaltechnology.com/2026/01/06/movers-and-shakers-senior-female-appointments-at-harvey-mishcon-elite-and-menlo-ventures/
◾ The LawSites blog by Bob Ambrogi posts about hiring news from The Masters Conference. As Bob puts it, in part, in his post:
"Last month, I reported on key hires and a rebranding at The Masters Conference, a legal education and thought leadership forum, as it announced its new identity as Masters LegalAI and brought on legal industry veteran Kevin Vermeulen as its new chief executive officer, along with Mike Dalewitz, a veteran e-discovery entrepreneur, as its executive chairman.
"Now, the organization has made another key hire, appointing Henry Dicker, who long ran ALM’s LegalTech conferences (later renamed Legalweek), as senior vice president of strategy and partnerships."
Read Bob's complete post here: https://www.lawnext.com/2026/01/henry-dicker-longtime-leader-of-alms-legaltech-conferences-joins-masters-legalai.html
◾ From a post by Artificial Lawyer:
"Global law firm Hogan Lovells, which is merging with US peer firm Cadwalader, has hired Paul Gilford as its new global Chief Information Officer (CIO) – he was previously in the same role at DLA Piper until September 2024. The move comes as the giant firm will face major tech and data integration needs with the merger, as well as handling a growing demand for rolling out genAI tools.
"Gilford succeeds Gareth Ash, who will retire in February after almost nine years with the firm, and will be based in the firm’s London office. Since working at DLA he’s had a short-term role at Azets, an accountancy consolidator group." https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/01/12/hogan-lovells-hires-ex-dla-piper-cio/
Honors and Awards
◾ It's the start of a new year, and, among many other things, that means that Legalweek isn't too far off and that, in turn, means that the Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards finalists have been announced. A Legaltech News post identifies the Legalweek honorees who have already been named and the Tech Law Awards finalists for the awards whose winners have not yet been announced.
"The sixth annual Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards honors individuals and organizations who have been at the forefront of legal innovation over thepast year, across three categories: law firms, legal departments and technology providers.
"Over a dozen judges have chosen select groups of finalists from hundreds of worthy submissions. Below, you’ll find the lists of all finalists."
https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/01/08/announcing-the-2026-legalweek-leaders-in-tech-law-awards-finalists-lifetime-achievement-and-monica-bay-women-of-legal-tech-winners-/?kw=Announcing+the+2026+Legalweek+Leaders+in+Tech+Law+Awards+Finalists,+Lifetime+Achievement+and+Monica+Bay+Women+of+Legal+Tech+Winners&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=newsroomupdate&utm_content=20260108&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056
Member Introductions/Questions
◾ New LTSF community member, Ceschina Brooks_de_Vita, introduces himself: "Hi! I'm Ceschino (think of the games, chess and keno), and I'm the creator of TheLegalTechGuide.com and host of The Future of Law Is Today podcast.
I" started my career in BigLaw and then got an MBA and moved into legal tech marketing. Now I'm bridging the gap between legal teams and legal tech companies, helping lawyers and legal ops pros be informed consumers and users of legal tech and AI.
Happy to connect with everyone here!"
Product Development
◾ Making sure that foundation model LLM's have enough of what's called "memory" has become an important consideration when it comes to model use. Now, Harvey has taken a page from that book by planning to bring its own "Memory" (as Harvey calls it) feature to its product, a feature that enables "Memory" to persist beyond the work of/in a single user/client matter. Here's a post from Legal IT Insider with details.
From the post:
"Legal GenAI vendor Harvey today (8 January) announced the launch of Memory, a context retention product that it is looking to co-build with input from the legal industry. Harvey says that when Memory is turned on it will be able to reference past threads within a firm’s defined retention window to inform new questions. This capability can be scoped at a granular level, for example, to a specific user, client, or matter.
"While announcing a product that doesn’t exist yet is likely to be greeted with cynicism among competitors, Harvey says it is taking a deliberate ‘build in public’ approach given the complexities of what it is building when it comes to the likes of data privacy and governance challenges." https://legaltechnology.com/2026/01/08/harvey-to-build-memory-for-context-retention-across-matters/
Purchasing/Using Legal Tech
◾ Legaltech News posts about the launch of an AI consultancy. From LTN's post:
"On Saturday [January 3, 2026], Levantage AI Advisors, a new Miami-based advisory firm designed to counsel small and midsize law firms on artificial intelligence tool selection and adoption, publicly launched and announced the availability of its services.
"Founded in 2025, Levantage plans to work with firms to identify potential use cases for AI in worklows such as intake, client communications, document handling and internal operations. The firm will not directly sell software to customers, but will instead recommend products, provide software-agnostic suggestions and build processes that integrate AI-powered tools into existing workflows and create new ones.
"Levantage will also assist customers with implementation tasks, including training firm staff on the use of new technologies and refining systems and workflows over time."
https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/01/05/law-firm-ai-selection-and-adoption-advisory-levantage-ai-advisors-publicly-launches-/?kw=Law+Firm+AI+Selection+and+Adoption+Advisory+Levantage+AI+Advisors+Publicly+Launches&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=afternoonupdate&utm_content=20260105&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&slreturn=20260105160537
◾ Here’s a report from Artificial Lawyer about a vibe coding Clifford Chance associate who creates, as AL puts it, “a range of sophisticated legal AI tools that aim to do what major companies are providing.”
From the AL report:
“If you’ve been on social media then you will have probably seen posts by Clifford Chance senior associate Jamie Tso, who on his own has built – or in today’s parlance vibe-coded – a range of sophisticated legal AI tools that aim to do what major companies are providing. Here, Artificial Lawyer interviews Hong Kong-based Tso (see Linkedin bio), and asks him some of the big questions. This includes the key one: is this approach a viable alternative for major law firms to buying legal tech tools? And also: why not start your own legal tech company?”
https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/01/05/jamie-tso-interview-vibe-coding-your-own-legal-ai-tools/
◾ Legaltech News posts a piece in which two litigation lawyers at Winston & Strawn discuss what they believe Gen AI's role will be in e-discovery in 2026 (in brief: judges won't ". . . immediately greenlight [Gen] AI as a replacement for human review for outgoing production decisions"). Here's a blurb from the LTN post:
"Generative AI will be everywhere in e-discovery by 2026, but not necessarily where some evangelists predict. Call us contrarian if you must, but we do not believe the headline-ready notion that large language models will substantially supplant traditional responsiveness review for production will materialize this year.
"Instead, 2026 will see generative AI become integral across a host of document-related litigation workflows, including issues analysis, privilege screening, quality control, sensitivity detection, production analysis, chronology building, fact development and deposition prep, while human judgment remains central to responsiveness determinations for outgoing productions. At the same time, we expect courts finally will begin to articulate the contours of defensible AI use in production workflows, offering early guardrails without endorsing wholesale automation of responsiveness calls."
https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/01/05/guardrails-before-greenlights-how-gen-ai-will-actually-shape-e-discovery-in-2026/?kw=Guardrails+Before+Greenlights:+How+Gen+AI+Will+Actually+Shape+E-discovery+in+2026&utm_position=2&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=morningupdate&utm_content=20260106&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&slreturn=20260106083336
◾ Amit Dungarani of Casepoint posts to Legaltech News with advice on how legal ops leaders can evaluate outside counsel's AI use. Very thoughtful essay!!
From the post:
"While legal departments are right to expect partners who understand the promise and potential of AI, traditional methods of evaluating outside counsel are no longer sufficient for today’s environment. Instead of asking if a firm uses AI, legal departments should focus on how, and look for outcome-based proof, from the depth of AI adoption to documented governance. The real differentiator is depth over breadth: firms that embed AI deeply generate higher-quality insights that inform legal strategy and drive measurable cost and risk reduction. Anything less invites higher spend and avoidable risk for legal teams."
$$Quote from the post: "While many firms highlight their AI capabilities in marketing materials and proposals, broad claims of expertise tell us very little about the specific tools and workflows they are using, the potential for measurable cost and efficiency gains, or how a firm perceives and mitigates risk related to AI. To separate firms offering real capability from those that are still experimenting, legal operations teams need a structured evaluation model."
Plenty more to learn from Amit's post, which can be read in full at this link: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/01/06/how-legal-operations-can-evaluate-outside-counsel-in-the-age-of-ai/?kw=How+Legal+Operations+Can+Evaluate+Outside+Counsel+in+the+Age+of+AI&utm_position=4&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=morningupdate&utm_content=20260107&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&slreturn=20260107092157
◾ “Vibe coding by lawyers” has gotten a lot of mindshare recently. Artificial Lawyer (AL) has a post about “Case.dev – [a company that is] is coming to market, designed to help you develop your own legal tech products, or customise a range of pre-built options.”
Here’s a link to the AL post where AL interviews Case.dev’s founder, Scott Kveton (who also runs CaseMark, “. . . a litigation lifecycle business”):
https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/01/07/case-dev-launches-legal-tech-vibe-coding-platform/
◾ From the LawSites blog:
“Law firms dramatically accelerated their technology investments in 2025, with spending on tech and knowledge management tools growing 9.7% and 10.5% respectively — the fastest real growth likely ever experienced in the legal industry, according to the newly released 2026 Report on the State of the US Legal Market from Thomson Reuters and Georgetown Law’s Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession.”
https://www.lawnext.com/2026/01/legal-tech-spending-surges-9-7-as-firms-race-to-integrate-ai-says-report-on-state-of-legal-market.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=LawSitesBlog-2026-01-07-52077
◾ We're past retrospectives on legal tech in 2025. Forward, to predictions for legal tech in 2026. So, with that said, here are predictions for e-discovery-driven legal tech in the coming year, all assembled in a post by Legal Tech News. From LTN's post:
"More automation and clarity could be coming to the e-discovery space in 2026, with many expecting generative artificial intelligence to change first-pass review, privilege log preparation, investigations and other processes over the next 12 months. After all, gen AI e-discovery pricing is becoming much more affordable, a trend many expect to continue. Still, it will not be a smooth transition—gen AI’s prominence in litigation is likely to bring more “discovery-on-discovery” and other battles surrounding its use and place in e-discovery.
"This year could also see court rulings on gen AI, which may finally offer clarity on complex issues around gen AI data ownership, custody and whether prompts are discoverable."
Access the entire LTS post here: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/01/07/legal-techs-predictions-for-e-discovery-in-2026-/?kw=Legal+Tech%27s+Predictions+for+E-discovery+in+2026&utm_position=1&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=morningupdate&utm_content=20260108&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&slreturn=20260108080205
◾ Very helpful delineation of the 2025 legal tech trends; you know, the ones that will really matter going forward. - all from a post on the LawSites blog by Robert Ambrogi. I particularly like the take on regulatory reform!! From the post:
"What follows are the 10 trends that defined legal technology in 2025, based primarily on my own blog posts, podcast interviews and event coverage throughout the year. These are not ranked – each represents a significant trend that reflects how technology is reshaping the legal profession."
Access to the full post at the following link: https://www.lawnext.com/2026/01/the-10-legal-tech-trends-that-defined-2025.html
◾ Community member, Manan Dubey, posts about an advocacy writing tool, called SYNK AI, that assist advocacy writing significantly. Below is an excerpt from Manan's post:
"THE CHALLENGE:
"Traditional process for drafting written arguments:
"📚 Research: 10-15 hours
✍ Drafting: 8-12 hours
👨⚖ Senior review: 2-4 hours
🔄 Revisions: 3-5 hours
"**Total: 25-35 hours per case**
"And even after all that, you might:
❌ Miss critical precedents
❌ Leave logical gaps
❌ Fail to address counterarguments
❌ Cite cases that don't fully support your point
"THE SOLUTION:
"Watch how SYNK AI strengthens written arguments, It is context aware and have all the context of your case documents:
"https://lnkd.in/gSYpBEDU"
You can read Manan's entire post here: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/96277266?utm_source=manual
Teaching/Learning Legal Tech
◾ Working with GenAI tooling is already among the core skills that lawyers need to acquire and maintain. Below is a link to a forthcoming workshop from Hotshot where AI training takes center stage (registration information for the workshop is also available at the below link).
“Join Joe Borstein (Baretz + Brunelle), Esther Bowers (Honigman), Jessica Gichner (Pillsbury), Ilona Logvinova (Herbert Smith), and Claire Wasserman (Hotshot) for a discussion on what's working in AI training right now. We'll look at emerging trends in teaching AI fundamentals, explore practical use cases, and discuss how firms are creating hands-on learning experiences - both for their own teams and for clients. You'll come away with actionable ideas for building or improving your AI training program.” https://resources.hotshotlegal.com/ai-training-trends-webinar
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