July 28, 2025 -- Issue #351

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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Fundraising

◾ Legaltech News posts:
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“On Thursday, U.S. and Japan-based legal tech startup LegalOn announced that it has closed a $50 million series E funding round, led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives. The round also featured participation from World Innovation Lab, Japanese law firm Mori Hamada, and financial institutions Mizuho Bank and Shoko Chukin.
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“The new investment comes roughly three years after LegalOn’s $101 million series D, and brings total investment in the company to over $200 million. The company was founded in Japan in 2017 as LegalForce, and initiated its expansion to the United States in late 2022.”
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What I want to know is when will the public markets be strong enough to encourage legal tech scaleups like LegalOn to IPO.
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/07/24/legalon-announces-50-million-series-e-funding-round-led-by-goldman-sachs/​

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Hiring/New Hires​
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◾ Legaltech News reports:
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On Wednesday, AI litigation prediction platform Theo AI announced the appointment of Sarah Johansson as head of legal product.
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Prior to joining Theo AI, Johansson was a litigation paralegal at Rosling King. She graduated with a master of laws from Georgetown University Law Center in 2023 and with a bachelor of laws from Queen Mary University of London in 2020.
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/07/23/litigation-technology-startup-theo-ai-announces-its-first-head-of-legal-product-/​

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JusticeTech/A2J

◾ From Legaltech Hub:
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“Today, Deposely announced the launch of its new Justice Initiative, a program designed to give pro bono public-interest legal organizations a 90% discounted rate on its full suite of AI deposition tools. The new initiative “aims to level the playing field for legal teams serving low-income and underserved communities” by giving them access to the same tools leveraged by large and specialty litigation law firms, the press release stated.”
​https://www.legaltechnologyhub.com/contents/deposely-offers-90percent-public-interest-discount-under-new-justice-initiative/​

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LegalEd

◾ From Legal IT Insider:
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“The UK AI Industry Association is set to launch a legal working group next month, with Ashurst and Shoosmiths confirmed as inaugural members. The trade body, chaired by former UBS head of legal Fiona Phillips, will be announcing the full list of participating organisations in the next week.”
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“A UKAI spokesperson told Legal IT Insider that the senior, practitioner-led group will lead a stream of activity shaped around what members need. This includes roundtables, fireside discussions, co-authored guidance documents, case studies, whitepapers, and deep-dive working sessions. All of this will be member-driven and focused on tangible outcomes.”
​https://legaltechnology.com/2025/07/22/ukai-to-launch-legal-working-group-ashurst-and-shoosmiths-confirmed-as-inaugural-members/​

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Product Development

◾ "Lexis Nexis Legal & Professional today (21 July) announced the UK launch of LexisNexis Protégé, its personalised, agentic AI assistant."

And "Legal IT Insider spoke with LexisNexis’ CEO Sean Fitzpatrick about Protégé, the sector’s readiness for agentic AI, and opening up black box AI"https://legaltechnology.com/2025/07/21/lexisnexis-launches-agentic-ai-assistant-protege-in-the-uk/​

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◾ Per Legaltech News:
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“On Wednesday [July 23, 2025], legal technology provider Litera announced the launch of Lito, a new AI agent inside of the company’s Litera One platform. The agent is designed to perform workflows addressing both business of law and practice of law needs.”
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“What It is: Lito is a legal AI agent embedded in Litera One, the company’s unified platform for drafting, contract review, and firm analytics tools. The new agent is designed to perform multi-step tasks for users within the platform, responding to natural language requests by selecting the best tools to carry out given tasks and performing them on behalf of users.”
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/07/23/litera-launches-lito-a-new-ai-agent-in-litera-one/​

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◾ From product development, to business partnerships to hiring news (and more) - a link to this wee
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/07/25/legaltech-rundown-trellis-releases-attorney-analysis-tool-lexisnexis-launches-protg-in-the-uk-and-more/​

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Purchasing/Using Legal Tech

◾ A "public service announcement." Below is a link to a LinkedIn post from Conan Hines (Director of Practice Innovation at Fried Frank) where Conan sounds the alert to the dangers posed by prompt injection exploits.

"And then there’s the prompt injection. It’s an unfortunate feature as well. I’ll pose a scenario 🕵️‍♂️
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"An AI agent has access to sensitive internal data, and an external communication system.
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"A bad actor sends a message to the comm system with masked instructions.
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The instructions blend with the agents prompts and bypasses guardrails.
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"The info was compromised and relayed through the comms channel out to the bad actor. 🚨 🚨 "

I can't agree more with Conan. When an innovation in legal as impactful as GenAI appears there must be debate that includes a discussion of the tech's significant downsides and risks and the willingness (and sometimes insistence) to engage in that debate doesn't make one an "AI hater."https://www.linkedin.com/posts/conan-hines_why-do-you-hate-ai-its-something-a-peer-activity-7352993257573752835-xV7R?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAACjKkUBuYvfoBWwBGd7KKABZw3jrdiBcc0​

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◾ Legaltech News reporting:

"Chief operating officers and administrative executives at law firms see partners as the biggest roadblock to implementing tech upgrades at their organizations, according to the Blickstein Group’s “Law Firm COO Survey” published last week.

"The Blickstein Group surveyed 158 law firm COOs and principal administrators in North America. Over a quarter (28.2%) of survey respondents said that partners as a whole are the biggest obstacle to implementing changes at their law firm.”

“I’m shocked by this report,” said no one (who knows law firms) ever.https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/07/21/-law-firm-leaders-see-partners-standing-in-the-way-of-tech-upgrades/​

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◾ In the linked article below, Legaltech News discusses risk mitigation (through insurance and other means, such as adoption and policing of tech-use policies) as a concomitant to law firm AI use):
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“Law firms are eyeing up new and emerging risks, including ones associated with increased artificial intelligence use, and more firm leaders say they plan to expand their insurance coverage to ensure their greatest business risks will be covered in the digital era, according to new findings by digital insurance company Embroker.
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“In its second annual Legal Industry Risk Index, Embroker found that nearly half of the 245 legal professionals surveyed in June—45%—said they plan to enhance their insurance policies, with more legal professionals securing dedicated cyber coverage in an era where law firms are becoming more digitized.”
​https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2025/07/23/as-law-firm-ai-use-grows-firms-look-to-mitigate-risk-with-added-insurance-/​

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◾ Joel Bijlmer posts: "Legal tech talks a lot about speed. Deliberately.ai is focused on something deeper: understanding.

"In our exclusive interview with founder Hans Guntren, we explore how his own divorce led to the creation of a new legal infrastructure layer: one rooted in empathy, accuracy, and what he calls Client Intelligence.

"This isn’t automation. It’s transformation.

"Read the full story: https://thelegalwire.ai/deliberately-ai-and-the-rise-of-client-intelligence/"

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◾ Legal IT Insider asks:

"Legal IT Insider is updating our UK Top 200 of law firm IT systems and tools, and we are inviting and encouraging you to share any updates for your organisation.

"If you are a UK Top 200 law firm, please click on the link below [i.e., the link. found the article that itself is linked below] and let us know what systems you use spanning the breadth of our Top 200 categories. You are welcome to check the existing Excel spreadsheet below and only fill in details where there are changes. For example, if you just have a new cloud PMS, please complete the form with the details under PMS and you can leave the other categories blank. Where possible, please include your latest published revenue figure." https://legaltechnology.com/2025/07/28/legal-it-insider-uk-top-200-update-your-details-now/​

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Startup Management

◾ From HackerNoon:
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Some hard truths about building AI agents (written from the standpoint of building agents for software development purposes, but more broadly applicable).
​https://hackernoon.com/stop-believing-the-agent-hypethe-numbers-dont-lie​

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◾ How do legal tech vendors succeed at legal tech conferences? Legaltech Hub has you covered. Below is a link to a LinkedIn post from Legaltech Hub that itself links to an article called "Booth Boss: How to Win at Trade Shows" where Legaltech Hub ". . . [breaks] down the most common missteps vendors make on the expo floor and share actionable strategies to stand out, engage buyers, and drive pipeline."https://www.linkedin.com/posts/legal-tech-hub_legaltech-artificialintelligence-startups-activity-7354130591761473537-4G24?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAACjKkUBuYvfoBWwBGd7KKABZw3jrdiBcc0​

And, if you're a legal tech purchaser, Legaltech Hub also has you covered. See the link below to learn about a Legaltech Hub get-together planned for July 30, titled "Making ILTACON work for you: Tools and Tips for Legaltech Buyers."https://www.linkedin.com/posts/legal-tech-hub_legaltech-iltacon-innovation-activity-7353775180520849408-ggAD?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAACjKkUBuYvfoBWwBGd7KKABZw3jrdiBcc0​

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Teaching/Learning Legal Tech

◾ Legaltech News:

"Generative AI competitions, contests, and training courses have become an integral part of summer associate programs at some law firms, as leaders look to give future employees early access to the tools reshaping legal practice.

"At Detroit-headquartered Honigman, this Tuesday marked the conclusion of a "Shark Tank"-style AI workflow competition for summer associates."

One of many $$Quotes in the article:

"'The level of AI expertise was not as high as we thought it would be … coming into the law firm,” [Erik Kapocius, Honigman’s senior AI solutions manage] said. ' think we have an opportunity to better partner with law schools and with our vendors to introduce these tools earlier on, so that way, as the law students are graduating, their knowledge and expertise is much higher.'"https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/07/24/inside-honigmans-ai-shark-tank-for-summer-associates/?kw=Inside+Honigman%27s+AI+%26lsquo;Shark+Tank%27+for+Summer+Associates&utm_position=1&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=morningupdate&utm_content=20250725&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&slreturn=20250725090350​