June 15, 2026 -- Issue #398
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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Exit/M&A
◼️ A post from Legaltech News (LTN) reports on an acquisition by GenAI IP tool maker DeepIP.
From the LTN post:
"Generative artificial intelligence patent assistant DeepIP announced Tuesday its acquisition of Munich-based PatentMaker, another AI-powered patent assistant for legal professionals. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed in the press release.
"Founded in 2020 by Boehmert & Boehmert partner Dr. Matthias Hofmann, PatentMaker leverages gen AI to perform patent drafting, prosecution, standard mapping and freedom-to-operate analysis and has been modified since its founding through collaboration with its users, which includes feedback from legal practitioners."
Find the entire LTN post here:https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/06/09/deepip-acquires-ai-patent-assistant-patentmaker/
◼️ LawSites posts M&A news with news of Clio’s acquisition of Canada’s “legal AI and data company,” Jurisage. From the LawSites post:
“Clio has acquired Jurisage, the Canadian legal AI and data company, in a deal it is describing as “a foundational investment in the future of legal AI in Canada.
“The deal brings together one of Canada’s most comprehensive AI-ready legal datasets with Clio’s “Intelligent Legal Work Platform,” the name the company uses to describe its array of AI-powered products for legal professionals.”
Read all of the LawSites post here: https://www.lawnext.com/2026/06/clio-acquires-jurisage-paving-the-way-for-canadian-launch-of-clio-work-and-other-canadian-ai-tools.html
◼️ A post from Legaltech News reports that Relativity, the legal tech company that's already very well know for it's e-discovery tooling, is branching out into the "document automation and contracting space" with the acquisition of Gavel.
From LTN's post:
"E-discovery company Relativity announced Friday that it acquired document automation and contract review company Gavel. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
"The acquisition represents Relativity’s move deeper into the document automation and contracting space. In a press release announcing the deal, the company noted that Relativity’s integration of Gavel, which works within Microsoft Word, will allow users to directly connect RealtivityOne to work product in Word."
Read the complete LTN post at this link: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/06/12/relativity-acquires-document-automation-contract-review-startup-gavel-/
Fundraising
◼️ An Artificial Lawyer (AL) post reports that Sandstone, a legal tech startup that serves in-house legal teams, has closed a Series A round to the tune of $30 million.
From AL's post:
"Sandstone has raised $30 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, to support the development of AI-native legal departments – (see AL Interview with CEO, Nick Fleisher, below).
"The investment follows Sandstone’s $10m Seed round in January. In the past 90 days the US-based company has increased revenue by over 40x and onboarded customers such as Wayfair, Grindr, Mercury, Cox Media, and ElevenLabs, they said."
Read of the AL post at this link: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/06/09/sandstone-raises-30m-for-ai-native-inhouse-teams/
◼️ Another legal tech startup funding announcement today, June 9, 2026, as Legaltech News (LTN) posts about Billable AI's Series A that clocks in at around $10.2 million.
As reported in LTN'S post:
"On Tuesday, San Francisco-based artificial intelligence-powered timekeeping and task intelligence platform Billables AI announced the completion of a roughly $10.2 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Avenue Growth Partners and featured participation from returning investors Wing VC, SignalFire and Alumni Ventures."
The entire LTN post is at this link: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/06/09/timekeeping-startup-billables-ai-announces-102m-series-a/
◼️ Seed round funding news in a Legaltech News (LTN) post with the report of a $5.5 million raise by IP legal tech startup, Fearn.
From the LTN post:
“On Wednesday [June 10, 2026], San Francisco-based artificial intelligence-powered patent platform Fearn announced the completion of a $5.5 million seed funding round. The round was led by Kindred Ventures, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z speedrun startup accelerator, Designer Fund and Essence VC.”
The entire LTN post can be accessed here:
https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/06/10/ai-powered-patent-platform-fearn-announces-55m-seed-round-/
◼️ From the legal tech startup, Courtroom’s June 11, 2026 press release:
“New York, NY (June 11, 2026) — Courtroom today announced its public launch and pre-seed funding, introducing a new category of litigation technology: AI jury and judge simulation for real-time case development and strategy from pre-filing through trial.
“Neo and Precursor Ventures led Courtroom's pre-seed round, with participation from Rel Labs, Relativity's investment arm. Strategic angels in the round include Craig Glidden, Scott Mozarsky, Doak Bishop, members of technical staff at OpenAI, Baretz+Brunelle and LexFusion, its innovation portfolio, and others.”
Read the full press release here: https://www.courtroom.ai/resources/courtroom-emerges-from-stealth?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
H/T to George Hannah and his top notch Best Practice newsletter for making me aware of this raise.
Hiring/New Hires
◼️ The LawSites blog reports on a senior hire by Casepoint. From the LawSites post:
“Casepoint has named Paul Colangelo, a longtime government- and enterprise-software executive, as its chief executive officer, the company announced this morning.
“He will oversee the company’s continuing integration following its January 2025 acquisition by private-equity firm Thoma Bravo and merger with OPEXUS, as well as the growth of its e-discovery, legal hold, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), regulatory and compliance products.”
Here’s a link to LawSites’ entire post:
https://www.lawnext.com/2026/06/casepoint-names-govtech-veteran-paul-colangelo-ceo-as-thoma-bravo-backed-company-pushes-deeper-into-government.html
◼️ A new CEO and board member at Integreon, as noted in this post from Bob Ambrogi’s LawSites blog.
From the LawSites post:
“‘We want to be the intentional multipliers which can deliver the predictable, purposeful and scalable solutions to our stakeholders.’
“That is the message Krishna Nacha is delivering to his employees as he steps into the role of chief executive officer of Integreon, a global provider of technology-enabled legal and business solutions.”
See the entire LawSites post here:
https://www.lawnext.com/2026/06/integreon-names-krishna-nacha-as-ceo-to-lead-ai-forward-growth-strategy.html
JusticeTech/A2J
◼️ From the UK's Gov.uk website comes a post captioned:
"Thousands of victims could see justice delivered more quickly as the Government pilots the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the Crown Court."
From the post:
"A raft of new technology projects is being developed which will aim to deliver improvements across the justice system and tackle the court backlog - including AI legal assistants to support legal professionals and staff, and streamlined case management processes to get cases moving faster.
"The new AI legal assistants will be developed in partnership with the UK’s top legal experts and leading AI developers to support legal professionals with routine casework, including research and case analysis. The purpose of the technology will be to drive productivity, boost efficiency in the Crown Court, and cut the time victims have to wait for their day in court.
"Before being used in the Crown Court, the new technology will first be trialled in highly controlled environments that set clear standards for safe and ethical use. This will ensure any new software meets the high bar required by judges and lawyers before being considered for rollout in the courts system."
H/T to The Legal Wire newsletter for making me aware of this post.
Entire post here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ai-tech-ambition-to-deliver-smarter-justice-for-victims?utm_source=newsletter.thelegalwire.ai&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=from-crown-court-pilots-to-capitol-hill-audits&_bhlid=be471478e275b6aa2ca903c48cf51565e8c0cebc
LegalEd
◼️ Another AI-native law firm is founded, this time by IP partners from Goodwin Procter, as reported in a post from Legaltech News (LTN).
From LTN's post:
"Rapid improvements in generative artificial intelligence tools have prompted the emergence of a new class of AI-native law firm, but the boundaries and possibilities of the category are still coming into view.
"While many such firms are focused on commercial contracting, Antheros, a San Francisco-based law firm founded in 2025, aims to use the AI-forward approach to provide a full suite of transactional intellectual property services to startups and emerging companies in life sciences industries.
"Antheros was founded by partners Sabrina Poulos, Kristin Havranek and Stephanie Dusaban Gonzales, all three of whom departed from Goodwin Procter’s IP group to start the new firm. Poulos and Havranek were partners at Goodwin and Gonzales was as associate. The three also previously worked at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where Poulos—now serving as Antheros’s managing partner—held a partnership."
Much more in the full LTN post that can be found here: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/06/08/why-3-attorneys-left-goodwin-to-start-an-ai-native-ip-firm/?kw=Why+3+Attorneys+Left+Goodwin+to+Start+an+%26lsquo%3BAI-Native%27+IP+Firm&utm_position=1&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=morningupdate&utm_content=20260609&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&user_id=5a62392218ff43ec508b502b
Member Introductions/Questions
◼️ Community member, Caroline Malone, introduces herself to us all: "Hello all! Apologies I have been a member for over a month and haven’t introduced myself at all. I’m based in Ireland and just finished my final BL exams at King’s Inns in Dublin. This is my LinkedIn and my website. Lovely to meet you all. Thank you Charlie Uniman for inviting me. "
🙏 https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-malone
https://praxisconsulting.ie/
Partnerships/Business Development
◼️ It's that time of the week when we link to Legaltech News' legaltech rundown - a summary of significant events in our BV ("Beloved Vertical"). Plenty of business partnerships, a handful of hires and appointments and several product releases. Relax and refresh this weekend (if you can).
Here's a link to the rundown:
https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/06/12/legaltech-rundown-legora-announces-partnership-with-wolters-kluwer-harvey-teams-up-with-datasite-and-more-/?kw=Legaltech+Rundown%3A+Legora+Announces+Partnership+With+Wolters+Kluwer%2C+Harvey+Teams+Up+With+Datasite%2C+and+More&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=afternoonupdate&utm_content=20260612&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&user_id=5a62392218ff43ec508b502b
◾ A post from Artificial Lawyer (AL) reports a business partnership between Lawyers on Demand and Wordsmith.
From the AL post:
“Lawyers On Demand (LOD), which was bought by Consilio in 2023, is partnering with Wordsmith to deliver AI-enabled managed services to inhouse legal teams. Last month the Scottish legal AI company also hooked up with Morae to extend its inhouse engagement.
“Fundamentally, this – and similar moves across the market – is about giving inhouse teams the combined support of AI and specialist legal talent in one package. I.e. AI is great, but for now we still need plenty of good old fleshy human lawyers to make it work at scale. And inhouse groups don’t always have the numbers. Plus, an ALSP + AI combo can mean significant cost savings.”
“In short, clients send their stuff to LOD, and LOD uses Wordsmith to help in that work. No need to hire more lawyers. What’s not to like?”
Read AL’’s full post here: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/06/15/lod-consilio-wordsmith-link-for-managed-services/
Product Development
◼️ A well-curated collection of legal tech news “briefs” from Artificial Lawyer (AL), as AL steps away from its regular reporting to chair the Legal Innovators California event in San Francsico this week. Headlining this collection is Anthropic’s release of its latest model, the guard-railed version of Mythos, that Anthropic calls “Fable 5.”
From AL’s post:
“First up, Claude Fable and how Mark Pike, who is leading Claude for Legal, sees it (and mentions both Crosby and Harvey).
“In a social media post he said: ‘Claude Fable 5 is out now, and the legal results speak for themselves. Crosby scored its redlines against their current model. Per Aveek D. Member of Technical Staff at Crosby: ‘Claude Fable 5 feels materially different. In blind review, our lawyers found its redlines matched or beat our current model every time.’”
Read the complete post here: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/06/10/claude-fable-steno-billables-ai-spellbook-legora/
◼️ This post from Legal IT Insider (LITI) reports on a new services offering designed to improve the quality of AI-driven legal outcomes.
From LITI post:
“A former PwC partner and former COO of SYKE have launched a new AI legal services company on the premise that the next battleground in legal AI is no longer the software itself, but the ability to turn technology into measurable business outcomes.
“Lewis Bretts (ex PWC) and Tom Mellor (ex SYKE) have launched Telon with a team of 15. They say they have a major platform partnership already signed, and delivery running across the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Argentina.”
Read the full LITI post here: https://legaltechnology.com/former-pwc-partner-ex-syke-coo-launch-ai-services-company-telon/
Teaching/Learning Legal Tech
◼️ Legaltech News (LTN) has news of Spellbook’s fellowship program. Good for the legal tech community and, I say this in a most positive way, good for Spellbook too.
From the LTN post:
“Contract drafting and negotiation platform Spellbook on Tuesday unveiled its Legal Fellowship Fund, which will provide backing to law school students who have an interest in developing legal tech solutions.
“Spellbook’s fellowship program is open to law school students of all levels. Accepted applicants will be tasked with developing a legal tech tool of their own design with the help of Spellbook’s resources, including one-on-one sessions with Spellbook co-founder Daniel Di Maria as well as working sessions and testing opportunities with Spellbook’s various teams over the course of an academic semester.”
The entire LTN post is at this link: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/06/09/spellbook-launches-law-school-student-legal-tech-fellowship-program/
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