March 23, 2026 -- Issue #386
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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Conferences and Other Events
◾ Legaltech News (LTN) posts some Legalweek attendee reflections on AI-in-legal. From the LTN post:
"Legalweek 2026 revealed an industry that is moving past the questions of whether to deploy artificial intelligence and thinking through how to train attorneys, protect reputations and stand out in an environment where everyone has access to similar technology.
"Over four days at the Javits Center, attendees shared their thoughts in keynotes, panels, one-on-one conversations and booth demonstrations.
"Below are some of the most insightful quotes Legaltech News gathered from Legalweek 2026."
The entire LTN post is here: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/03/13/overheard-at-legalweek-2026-moving-past-yes-or-no-to-ai-/?kw=Overheard+at+Legalweek+2026:+Moving+Past+%26lsquo;Yes+or+No?%27+to+AI&utm_position=1&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=morningupdate&utm_content=20260316&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&user_id=5a62392218ff43ec508b502b&slreturn=20260316101512
◾ Legal Tech StartUp Focus is delighted to share news of Texas Trailblazers, a Cosmonauts event in partnership with LegalOps.com, for law firm and legal department innovators, legal operations professionals, and all other legal services providers eager to understand and help build the future of legal services delivery.
Hurry to register for the Texas Trailblazers two-day event, which kicks off on March 25, 2026, in Dallas, Texas. You can register right here: https://www.texas-trailblazers.com/expressregistration
Oh, and do note: 5+ CLE hours available for attending this event!!
As the people at Cosmonauts and LegalOps.com themselves put it:
"Designed for forward-thinking professionals ready to push boundaries to explore the real drivers of modern legal performance - from operating models, data, and AI adoption to process design, automation, and legal service economics.
"Through peer-led case studies, practical frameworks, and solution-driven sessions, attendees gain actionable ideas they can apply immediately inside their organizations.
"If you’re responsible for improving how legal gets done, welcome to the room!"
Again, register for the event here: https://www.texas-trailblazers.com/expressregistration
Fundraising
◾ Funding news in a post by Artificial Lawyer (AL). From the AL post:
“Norway-based legal AI platform Newcode has raised $6.5m, with a range of law firms as well as The Legal Tech Fund and Alliance VC taking part. AL interviewed CEO, Maged Helmy, about the fundraise, the company’s strategy, and more.”
In the AL post is a Q&A with Maged Helmy, Newcode’s CEO. An excerpt from that Q&A appears below to give readers an idea of what Newcode offers:
“A lot of the market today is still centered on AI as assistance: chat interfaces, tabular review tools, and point solutions that improve individual tasks. We see the opportunity differently. Newcode.ai is building the world’s first AI-native operating system for legal. That means we are not just helping lawyers generate answers faster. We are enabling firms to delegate complex, multi-step work and receive complete deliverables. Our platform acts as an intelligence layer across a firm’s systems, data, and applications, with the auditability, control, and deployment flexibility that legal teams require. In that sense, we are not building another legal AI tool.”
Here is a link to the complete AL post: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/03/17/newcode-raises-6-5m-maged-helmy-interview/
Hiring/New Hires
◾ Harvey hiring news from an Artificial Lawyer post:
Harvey has hired Keith Enright, most recently a partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, and previously Chief Privacy Officer at Google, to be its Chief Strategy Officer.
Since it launched, Harvey has made several partner-level hires. Enright, who is based in the US, was at Gibson Dunn for around 18 months, but spent over 13 years at Google. He’s also worked at Macy’s and IBM, among other roles.
Find the entire post here: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/03/23/harvey-hires-gibson-dunn-partner-as-cso/
Partnerships/Business Development
◾ Product launches, vendor office openings, new hires and appointments, and business partnerships are featured in this week's legal tech rundown from Legaltech News. Enjoy the weekend, everyone!
https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/03/20/legaltech-rundown-troutman-pepper-locke-adds-deep-research-to-ai-agent-relativity-launches-air-for-case-strategy-for-government-customers-and-more-/?kw=Legaltech+Rundown:+Troutman+Pepper+Locke+Adds+Deep+Research+to+AI+Agent,+Relativity+Launches+aiR+for+Case+Strategy+for+Government+Customers,+and+More&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=afternoonupdate&utm_content=20260320&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&user_id=5a62392218ff43ec508b502b&slreturn=20260320175859
Product Development
◾ A product launch from Aderant, an industry-leading business management software provider for law firms. From the Aderant press release today, March 18, 2026:
"ATLANTA –– March 18, 2026 -- Aderant®, a leading global provider of business management software for law firms, today announced the launch of new AI-powered employee performance reviews, sentiment analysis, and auto-summarization within viEval and viAllocate, part of the vi by Aderant suite of solutions. These enhancements mark the first client-facing AI capabilities within this product line, and are designed to bring greater clarity, consistency, and intelligence to talent decisions.
"The new AI-driven evaluation tools strengthen both the performance evaluation drafting and review process. Built directly into existing workflows, they help firms elevate evaluation quality, reduce administrative burden, and translate performance feedback into more informed staffing and development decisions."
The entire Aderant press release can be accessed at this link: https://www.aderant.com/news-pr/aderant-introduces-ai-powered-evaluation-and-employee-performance-intelligence-in-vi-by-aderant/
◾ CLM company Ironclad updates its agentic offerings with the launch of Ironclad Assistant, as report in a post from Legaltech News (LTN). From the LTN post:
"On Thursday, contract lifecycle management (CLM) company Ironclad announced the launch of Ironclad Assistant, which will unify and organize three new agentic artificial intelligence assistants for legal professionals.
"The launch of the latest AI agents comes several months after Ironclad announced the launch of AI agents for intake and contract redlining in November. Ironclad also recently announced its partnership with Stella Legal in February of this year.
"What It Is: Ironclad Assistant is a generative AI assistant that can answer users’ questions related to their contracts, provide information like summaries and data, and direct users to relevant AI agents."
Read the entire LTN post here: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/03/19/ironclad-launches-ironclad-assistant-expands-agentic-ai-capabilities/?kw=Ironclad+Launches+Ironclad+Assistant,+Expands+Agentic+AI+Capabilities&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=afternoonupdate&utm_content=20260319&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&user_id=5a62392218ff43ec508b502b
Purchasing/Using Legal Tech
◾ Legal AI platform provider August moves "upmarket" with a client win at BigLaw firm Hughes Hubbard, as reported in this post from Artificial Lawyer (AL). From the AL post:
"August, the broad legal AI platform mostly focused on medium- to small-scale law firms, has surprised the market and won AmLaw 200 firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed (HHR) as a key customer.
"The firm, which has over $270m in revenue and is ranked around 150, has ‘selected August as its firmwide AI platform, deploying the technology across legal practice areas and core business functions, including finance, billing, marketing, operations and administration’."https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/03/16/august-wins-big-law-firm-hughes-hubbard/?jetpack_skip_subscription_popup
◾ Love to see coverage of legal tech of the kind that I found in the edition published today (March 17, 2026) of the European startup-focused Sifted newsletter. From that edition:
"Legaltech on the rise
"Young founders with no legal background are reshaping the legal industry. Pierre Proner, CEO of London-based Lawhive, has never trained as a lawyer — yet he has already raised a Series B for his AI-native law firm.
"As an industry built entirely on words, legal services are a natural fit for large language models: searching, summarising, and drafting, all powered by domain-specific training.
"Stockholm-based Legora is another legaltech making headlines. Led by CEO Max Junestrand, last week it announced €480m in new funding, giving it the firepower to expand and acquire smaller rivals.
"That round took funding for legaltechs so far this year to €721m, according to Sifted data, already closing in on the €893m they raised across the whole of last year.
"Dig into the other legaltechs you should have on your radar, the trends shaping the sector and the most active investors in the market in our latest briefing on the topic."
◾ Legal IT Insider reports posts about a major customer win for Legora. From the post:
“Global law firm Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer is adopting Legora as its firm-wide general-purpose AI platform, marking what it describes as a significant step in the firm’s investment in innovation and technology‑enabled legal services. The news came out last week (12 March), within a day of the announcement that Legora has acquired Walter AI to expand its agentic platform for legal teams.”
More of the post here: https://legaltechnology.com/2026/03/16/legora-to-be-adopted-firm-wide-by-hsf-kramer-plus-acquires-walter-ai/
◾ Artificial Lawyer (AL) posts this week's "Wrap," which provides legal tech news highlights for the business week ending today, March 20, 2026. Oh, and a happy start to spring for all!!
From the AL post:
"We start this week’s Wrap with a real shocker! A chap on Twitter named Nav Toor, (see images), published 12 quite detailed legal prompts for Claude, but with the addition of famous law firm brands such as Latham & Watkins, Kirkland & Ellis, and Wachtell Lipton. It follows the recent brouhaha after Anthropic released a legal plug-in, which is basically just a very complex prompt."
Read all of AL's Wrap post here: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/03/20/claude-legal-prompt-shock-legalon-gpt-5-4-review-legal-innovators/
◾ LTSF community member, Yash Giri, posts: "The legal industry still pretends that reading 150 pages of vendor agreements on a Thursday night is a "rite of passage."
"It’s not. It’s just inefficient.
"Last week, an in-house counsel at a Series B startup told me she spends 40% of her week just making sure sales reps aren't signing away the company's data rights in standard MSAs. She wasn't doing high-level strategy; she was doing CTRL+F.
"So we gave her early access to ContractLens.
"Instead of reading 50 pages, hoping she didn't miss a non-standard auto-renewal clause, the AI cross-references the entire document against her company's playbook in 15 seconds. It highlights exactly where the counterparty tried to sneak in a change and explains why it matters.
"She went home at 5:30 PM on Friday for the first time in six months.
"We aren't replacing lawyers. We are just replacing the worst part of their day.
"I’m letting 15 more in-house counsel completely skip the waitlist today to try it on their worst, most boring contract. Link is in the comments. https://contractlens.app/ "
Startup Management
◾ Artificial Lawyer (AL) thinks out loud about Claude’s partner network could mean for legal tech vendors. From AL’s post:
“Anthropic has launched a new ‘Claude Partner Network’, a program designed to help enterprises adopt Claude, which includes $100m in funding to help those AI implementation partners. Members on the services side currently include Deloitte, Accenture, and a host of other consulting businesses.”
Using a nice analogy, AL adds:
“As noted, Anthropic is playing a double game. They want you, the legal tech vendor, to use their AI capabilities to enhance your product, and at the same time – at least for those who engage with corporates – they’re trying to sell directly to your customers at the same time.
“It’s a bit like hiring a great goal scorer for the football team who insists on scoring at least one own-goal in every match, but who everyone still agrees is a great player. Hmmm…….it’s tricky.”
Here’s a link to the AL thought piece: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2026/03/17/will-anthropics-claude-partner-network-impact-legal-tech/
◾ Legal IT Insider reports on Harvey’s roster of in-house leaders who comprise the company’s advisory board. From the Legal IT Insider post:
“Harvey today (16 March) unveiled a heavyweight in-house customer advisory board, which includes Bob Hoyt, the chief legal officer of HSBC Holdings.
“Harvey got its start working with law firms, working with them to gain feedback on developing its product. The general legal AI startup says that it is now applying that same approach to in-house teams and requesting that same level of feedback and partnership that it has had with law firms for the past three years. Harvey says that it already works with more than 500 in-house legal teams worldwide.”
Read all of the Legal IT Insider post here: https://legaltechnology.com/2026/03/16/harvey-announces-heavyweight-inaugural-in-house-advisory-board/
Teaching/Learning Legal Tech
◾ Legaltech News (LTN) posted today about NYC-based Columbia Law School's effort to bring AI learning into the classroom, this time as a substantive law area. From the LTN post:
"This spring, Columbia Law School introduced a new course titled “Law of Artificial Intelligence,” taught by Michel Paradis, a Steptoe partner with a Ph.D. in computational linguistics. Paradis told Legaltech News he wanted to remedy an emerging gap between AI systems’ increasing relevance as a substantive legal area and a general lack of knowledge among the legal profession about how they work."
$$Quote: "Beyond his own course, Paradis said he hopes to see law schools incorporate the use of gen AI-powered tools for editing into their legal writing curricula, and he said it might be helpful to teach students how to use AI coding tools to build their own software for certain use cases. To that end, students in the course are given the option of building their own legal software in lieu of writing a paper for their final assignment in the class."
https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2026/03/17/columbia-law-school-gets-technical-with-new-ai-course-led-by-stepoe-partner/?kw=Columbia+Law+School+Gets+Technical+With+New+AI+Course+Led+by+Steptoe+Partner&utm_position=1&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=morningupdate&utm_content=20260318&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A&user_id=5a62392218ff43ec508b502b
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