A weekly newsletter with links to articles from around the world that help legal tech startup leaders (and their customers and their investors) succeed in business
LTSF Newsletter -- January 19, 2026 -- Issue #377
January 19, 2026 -- Issue #377
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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The second post is by Paulo Silvestre de Oliveira Junior " . . . a recognized leader in strategic development and innovation for the legal sector, with over 14 years of experience driving transformative projects for legal departments and law firms." You can click on the below image to read Paulo's post.
Exit/M&A
◾ From the NetDocuments press release today, January 12, 2026:
"LEHI, UT — January 12, 2026 — NetDocuments, the cloud-native, AI-enabled legal document management platform, today announced the completion of its acquisition of eDOCS from OpenText. The deal includes the full product portfolio and the dedicated eDOCS team, expanding NetDocuments’ global presence to over 90 countries and providing the eDOCS community with a long-term home at a company fully focused on legal professionals."
The entire NetDocuments press release can be accessed at this link: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/96343523?utm_source=manual
◾ M&A news from Legaltech News:
"On Thursday, e-discovery, managed review and legal technology services provider Purpose Legal announced the acquisition of Hire Counsel, a flexible legal staffing and managed review provider. The transaction, the financial terms of which were not disclosed, was supported by private equity firm Blue Sage Capital.
"Purpose Legal CEO Greg Mazares told Legaltech News that the transaction represented a chance to combine Purpose’s expertise in developing and delivering customizable legal technology offerings with a large roster of vetted contract attorneys and other legal specialists."
Fundraising
◾ Reporting from Bob Ambrogi's LawSites blog:
“Over $55 million worth of meritorious civil claims go unfiled annually, particularly in working-class communities, because over 64% of prospective plaintiffs’ calls to law firms are ignored, says legal AI startup AlphaLit.”
Aiming to use AI to solve this problem for smaller cases and smaller law firms [that is, the problem of the high cost of vetting many of the civil claims that go unfiled], AlphaLit said today it has raised a $3.2 million seed round.”
LawSites’ entire post can be accessed here: https://www.lawnext.com/2026/01/ai-startup-alphalit-raises-3-2m-seed-round-to-screen-and-score-smaller-cases-and-route-them-to-lawyers.html
◾ More funding news for our legal tech vertical. Here from Legaltech News is a post about a raise by a medical records review startup, Parambil. From the LTN post:
"On Tuesday, artificial intelligence-powered medical record review software developer Parambil announced the completion of a $6 million seed funding round.
"The funding round was led by Bling Capital and featured participation from NVP Capital and angel investors from the legal tech, mass torts and personal injury fields. The new funding comes roughly one year after the company announced a $2 million pre-seed round led by Daybreak Ventures."
◾ Legaltech News with fundraising news:
"Mergers and acquisitions origination and research startup GrowthPal announced Wednesday that it closed a $2.6 million funding round led by venture fund Ideaspring Capital.
"The New York-headquartered startup was founded in 2020 by the former head of M&A strategy at Persistent System, Maneesh Bhandari, health care consultant Shalu Mitruka and former Tenable vice president Amaresh Shirsat."
Hiring/New Hires
◾ Reporting from the LawSite blog:
"Dean Sonderegger is returning to the legal market in a new leadership role at Wolters Kluwer, the company announced today.
"Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory has appointed Sonderegger as senior vice president and general manager of its ELM Solutions business, marking his return to the legal sector after a three-year stint leading other divisions within the company.
"Sonderegger most recently served as head of Wolters Kluwer’s Financial & Regulatory Reporting (FRR) business, and as senior vice president and general manager of the Canada and Research & Learning businesses in the Tax and Accounting division." https://www.lawnext.com/2026/01/dean-sonderegger-returns-to-law-to-lead-wolters-kluwers-elm-solutions-business.html
◾ A post with hiring news from Legal IT Insider. From the post:
"Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) has hired Paul Orchard as director of innovation and legal transformation for Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific (EMEAPAC), we can reveal. Orchard was previously head of innovation at Stephenson Harwood, where he helped to deliver the UK top 50 law firm’s GenAI solution testing and implementation programme.
"Orchard is no stranger to large law firms: before Stephenson Harwood, he was global head of legal service innovation at Freshfields and before that, director of continuous improvement at Clifford Chance. He replaces Jeremy Coleman, who last summer joined Leah (at the time called ContractPodAi)."
The entire post can be found here: https://legaltechnology.com/2026/01/13/exclusive-paul-orchard-joins-norton-rose-fulbright-as-director-of-innovation-and-legal-transformation-for-emeapac/
◾ For your weekend reading pleasure, Legaltech News’ legal tech rundown. This post features news about product development, hiring, learning-legal-tech and business partnerships. Enjoy!
https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/01/16/legaltech-rundown-relativitys-air-for-case-strategy-launches-widely-netdocuments-completes-edocs-acquisition-and-more/
Honors and Awards
◾ A reminder in a LawSites post to cast a ballot to determine which startup candidates get to compete at the ABA TECHSHOW's 10th annual StartUp Alley contest. From the post:
"With this post, voting is now officially open! Help pick the 15 legal tech startups that will get to compete at the 10th-annual Startup Alley at ABA TECHSHOW, March 25-28, 2026. Your votes determine the 15 companies selected to face off in a live pitch competition that will be the opening-night event of this year’s TECHSHOW in Chicago. They also get to exhibit in a special Startup Alley portion of the exhibit hall."
You can find the ballot at this link (and remember, the voting deadline is February 13 at 11:45 pm EST): https://www.lawnext.com/2026/01/voting-is-now-open-pick-the-15-finalists-to-compete-at-startup-alley-at-aba-techshow-2026-in-march.html
Incubators/Accelerators
◾ Legal tech incubator news from Artificial Lawyer's post. A&O Shearman's "Fuse" incubator is one of the best; so, early-stage startup leaders, do read:
"A&O Shearman’s (AOS) legal tech and fintech incubator, Fuse, is now open for applications to join its tenth cohort, which will start in May 2026. Applications close February 3rd.
"AL has always supported legal tech incubators like this as they are a win-win. So, if you’re interested in what you can do for AOS and its clients, and also what AOS can do for you, then go for it. (Of course, it will always be horses for courses…..but Fuse is strongly recommended 🙂 )" https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/01/13/ao-shearmans-fuse-calls-for-applications/
Member Introductions/Questions
◾ New community member, Christopher John, introduces himself to the community: "Founder & CEO of VerdeKai, where we're building infrastructure to unlock litigation finance. 10+ years scaling AI-driven fintech platforms, including one to $20M in growth funding. I've experienced both sides of the capital gap -- as a builder who understands milliseconds matter and as a fundraiser who's navigated the brutal inefficiency of traditional finance. VerdeKai combines a Bloomberg Terminal-style UX, AI-powered risk assessment (70-79% accuracy), and a funding marketplace with $1K-$5K minimums, vs. the industry's $250K+. We're targeting a market growing from $27B to $63B by 2035." Welcome, Christopher!
Product Development
◾ The LawSites blog reports:
"Relativity today announced the general availability of aiR for Case Strategy, a generative AI-powered product designed to help lawyers and litigation professionals develop case narratives faster by automatically extracting facts, building chronologies and generating strategic work product from evidence.
"The legal data intelligence company said the tool enables legal teams to auto-extract key facts from documents, visualize fact chronologies, accelerate deposition preparation, and create document, witness and transcript summaries – all within the RelativityOne platform." https://www.lawnext.com/2026/01/relativity-launches-air-for-case-strategy-to-extract-and-organize-key-facts-using-generative-ai.html
◾ One startup’s recent product launch in the online dispute resolution space is the subject of this post at the LawSites blog. From the post:
“. . . the pandemic and advances in technology have made us all more comfortable with handling our affairs online. Now there are various ODR companies, including Bot Mediation, Immediation, and New Era ADR, and even the 100-year-old American Arbitration Association is getting into the game with its recent launch of an AI-powered arbitrator for construction disputes.
“Against this backdrop, the company Dyspute.ai today launched version 2 of Adri, its AI-powered, asynchronous mediation platform that is designed to make dispute resolution available around the clock without the scheduling constraints of traditional mediation.”
Full Pathan be refund at this link: https://www.lawnext.com/2026/01/dyspute-ai-launches-adri-v2-a-24-7-asynchronous-ai-mediation-platform.html
◾ From a Bloomberg Law post:
“Sandstone, an AI legal tech startup that aims to connect corporate legal departments with other parts of the business, is publicly launching Tuesday with $10 million from leading legal technology funder Sequoia Capital and other investors.
“Sandstone, co-founded by former corporate legal consultant Nick Fleisher and former in-house attorney Jarryd Strydom, says it will use AI to bring data from human resources, sales and other departments to the legal team. Additional insight into the broader business will keep in-house lawyers better informed of strategic goals and make them more efficient, Sandstone says.”
H/T to The Legal Wire for calling my attention to the post from Bloomberg Law.
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/legal-ops-and-tech/sequoia-leads-backing-of-ai-legal-technology-startup-sandstone
Purchasing/Using Legal Tech
◾ Artificial Lawyer puts up a post to discuss LegalOn's survey that's captioned "2026 State of AI for In-House Legal." From the AL post:
"LegalOn’s new ‘2026 State of AI for In-House Legal‘ survey has found that contract AI adoption is accelerating very rapidly now, with more than half (52%) of inhouse legal teams already using or evaluating the technology for that use case, with active usage nearly quadrupling since 2024.
"This is a major change (see chart) and indicates that for many inhouse lawyers the use of AI tools is now ‘normal’. As said in previous years, this truly is a big change. For years, tech companies have cajoled inhouse lawyers to use AI tools for contract review, but without much success. Now, things are very different – in part no doubt because the tools are much more effective."
Read the entire post from AL (most worthwhile) at this link: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/01/12/inhouse-contract-ai-use-accelerating-survey/
◾ A simply marvelous two posts here from Artificial Lawyer (yes, I gush) comprising year-to-come predictions for our beloved legal tech vertical by industry leaders. AL has devised a format where each prognosticator is asked to offer three kinds of predictions: "What definitely will happen in 2026," "What may happen in 2026," and "What definitely won't happen in 2026." I find that format most helpful.
Many of these predictions will be wrong, but even those that turn out to be wrong nevertheless delineate the events that matter (this early in 2026).
Here are the links to each AL post, much worth reading here: Part I: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/01/08/artificial-lawyer-predictions-2026/ and Part II: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/01/12/artificial-lawyer-predictions-2026-part-2/
Regulatory Reform
◾ Legaltech News puts up a post asking whether the distinctions we draw among law firms, legal tech companies, and ALSPs will begin to blur (and even disappear) in 2026. From the post:
"Will 2026 be the year the boundaries between law firms and legal tech and service companies break down?
"The new year is starting off with those demarcations already on shaky ground. Over the course of 2025, law firms' investments in legal tech companies and their development of custom technology reached new heights.
"In tandem, more legal tech companies and legal services providers opened law firms, taking advantage of liberal regulations internationally or alternative business structure (ABS) licenses available in Arizona."
The entire LTN post can be read here:
Selling Legal Tech
◾ Artificial Lawyer posts to report on Harvey's opening of a Paris office and one of its latest hires:
"Pioneering legal AI platform Harvey is to open an office in Paris as its global growth continues. It’s great timing because the Legal Innovators Europeconference will take place for the first time in the French capital this June. They have also hired Jorge Bestard from Canva to become VP EMEA Sales.
"The launch of a Paris office follows the rapid expansion of Harvey around the world, with other office launches including Bengaluru in India last year, and Dublin, Ireland at the start of 2026."
AL's entire post can be accessed here: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/01/15/harvey-to-open-paris-base-as-global-growth-continues/
Startup Management
◾ Russ Korins of the Cohen Tauber Spievack & Wagner P.C. law firm in New York City has his first "fireside chat" for 2026 on February 5 at 12 pm EST. As Russ himself sums up what this chat is all about:
"My next fireside chat will feature return guest Leandra Elberger, now with Forum Ventures. We will discuss two essential ingredients to growth that are often underestimated or misunderstood: industry knowledge and customer listening. Feel free to share this with anyone else who may be interested."
Here are more details about the forthcoming event:
"To early-stage ventures, VC investors bring industry know-how and expertise in understanding customer needs. When leveraged properly, they are essential ingredients in sales and growth. How can a company make the most of these and what does it mean to apply them well?
"To shed light on these questions, we welcome back repeat fireside chat guest Leandra Elberger, now the Head of Platform & Network for Forum Ventures, a B2B venture fund with 430 companies funded and a founder community of 1300. Leandra has systematized the flow of knowledge to funded companies through Forum’s roster of Industry Councils covering areas such as healthcare, finance, and real estate.
"In a conversation with CTSW attorney Russ Korins, Leandra will discuss crucial lessons for companies—both pre- and post-funded—about how to run customer discovery properly, what it means to understand customer needs completely, and how companies should go about networking among experts in an industry to gain know-how and advice. We will discuss how one of the common exercises in customer listening can leave data incomplete, and how founders can maximize the value of knowing seasoned experts in their target market.
"Founders, executives, investors, advisors, and anyone else interested in how this knowledge can drive growth are welcome to attend. Register here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_X4WiZAmBTL6HCiOlDa0MLA"
Teaching/Learning Legal Tech
◾ A Substack from Alex Herrity on lawyers building their own apps. Coming from Alex, I'm not surprised to find that the post is not only informative but also enjoyable to read. Oh, and do read the posts linked in the quoted portion of the Substack post (below) about Law://WhatsNext and Artificial Lawyer posts that feature some lawyer-builders.
From the Substack post:
"What is emerging now is not just easier automation, but a new layer of building altogether. Lawyers and other domain experts are beginning to use AI-powered development environments that translate natural language directly into working code. These tools sit somewhere between a chatbot and a traditional development environment, allowing users to describe what they want and then iteratively refine what gets built.
"This goes well beyond asking an AI for tips or snippets. With these tools, people are creating small apps, workflows, and features, and from within that same environment, they can test them, adjust them, and in some cases deploy them for real use.
"At Law://WhatsNext, we’ve featured some impressive early builders in the legal space: Jamie Tso and Anson Lai have both showcased some of their builds, and Jamie has shared more recently via the Artificial Lawyer. No doubt more to follow here in the coming weeks."
◾ From the StrictlyVC newsletter:
“McKinsey is piloting a revamped graduate recruitment process that asks candidates to use its Lilli AI assistant during case interviews, grading how they prompt, challenge, and contextualize its outputs as the firm pushes deeper into AI agents and prepares for more efficiency-driven cuts.”
I often ask myself, whether law firms will ever dip their toe into task-based recruitment testing. Heaven forbid that lawyers ever take a page out of the consultants’ recruiting playbook.
Legal Tech StartUp Focus Newsletter
A weekly newsletter with links to articles from around the world that help legal tech startup leaders (and their customers and their investors) succeed in business
February 2, 2026 -- Issue #379 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. 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....
January 26, 2026 -- Issue #378 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. 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....
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. 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...