May 19, 2025 -- Issue #341

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

◾ From Legaltech News:

“On Wednesday [May 14, 2025], legal solutions provider Morae Global Corporation announced the acquisition of information governance software platform Gimmal.
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“With the acquisition, Morae Global Corporation aims to expand its reach in the legal technology market and strengthen its information management solutions related to data retention, migration, creation and classification, as well as defensible disposition.”
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/05/14/-morae-global-corporation-acquires-information-governance-platform-gimmal/​

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◾ “On Thursday, intellectual property management solutions provider Anaqua announced that it has acquired London-based RightHub, an IP management software and services company.
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“With the acquisition, Anaqua aims to strengthen its international customer base in Denmark, Sweden and the U.K. and develop more technology-based solutions. RightHub CEO and co-founder Toni Nijm will become part of Anaqua’s executive management team.”
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The remainder of this Legaltech News article is available here: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/05/15/anaqua-acquires-uk-based-ip-management-services-provider-righthub/​

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Fundraising

◾ Reporting from Forbes online:
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“AI startup Legora is in talks to raise $85 million in funding at a $675 million valuation, according to five sources familiar with the deal.
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“General Catalyst and Iconiq are leading the deal, these people said. Existing investors Redpoint Ventures and Benchmark are also participating in the round.
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“Legora, General Catalyst and Iconiq have not yet responded to requests for comment.”
​https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2025/05/06/legal-ai-startup-legora-in-talks-to-raise-new-funding-at-a-675-million-valuation/​

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Hiring/New Hires​
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◾ I love to wake up in NYC to a BigLaw’s CIO hiring, as Legaltech News reports below:
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Sheppard Mullin announced this week that it has hired David Lampert to be its new chief information officer.
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Lampert comes to the firm from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, where he had also served as chief information officer for a little under two years.
​https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2025/05/13/sheppard-mullin-adds-new-cio-from-cadwalader-/​
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Incubators/Accelerators​
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◾ Reporting by Legal IT Insider:
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“Google yesterday (12 May) launched an AI Futures Fund to invest in and collaborate with ambitious startups, with Harvey revealed to be one of the early participants. Harvey has raised millions of dollars in funding and its $100m Series C last year was led by GV (Google Ventures), but the fund announced this week is a brand new initiative led by fund co-founder and director John Silber. Silber joined Google this month from YouTube.
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“The program will give startups at various growth stages early access to Google DeepMind’s latest AI models as well as resources, technical expertise and equity funding to accelerate their progress.”
​https://legaltechnology.com/2025/05/13/google-launches-new-ai-futures-fund-and-harvey-is-among-the-inaugural-cohort/​
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JusticeTech/A2J

◾ “A legal information website launched this week is designed to help people in Arkansas handle legal problems on their own confidently and affordably.”
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“The site is built on Gavel, a documentation automation platform that enables lawyers to build client-facing legal products.”
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Read the related reporting and interview with the website’s creator at the LawSites blog here:
​https://www.lawnext.com/2025/05/lawyer-launches-site-to-help-pro-se-people-in-arkansas-navigate-legal-issues.html​

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LegalEd

◾ Joel Bijlmer of The Legal Wire, posts about a new feature at that publication:

"Introducing a major new feature from The Legal Wire:

"The AI Regulation Tracker is now live! A global, clickable interactive map that provides real-time updates on AI-related laws, policies, and legislative developments across the world. This tool is designed for legal professionals, policymakers, and anyone navigating the landscape of AI governance.

"What you'll find:

- Comprehensive, up-to-date coverage by country
- The latest bills, regulations, and official proposals
& Clear, accessible summaries of complex policy changes

"As AI legislation accelerates worldwide, staying informed isn’t optional, it's essential, so explore the tracker here: https://thelegalwire.ai/ai-regulation-tracker/ "

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Member Introductions/Questions

◾ New LTSF'er, Mike Denker, introduces himself to the community:

"Hey all — just joined and wanted to say a quick hello.

"I’m a longtime attorney turned SaaS operator turned founder, currently building Transactency — a platform focused on making contracts less painful and more productive.

"After decades in the legal trenches (and plenty of time watching deals get slowed down by the usual nonsense), I’m now focused on creating something that helps cut through the noise and build trust faster.

"Looking forward to learning from this community, sharing what I can, and connecting with folks who are navigating their own build/buy/grow journeys. Always up for a good convo — whether about legal ops, product, or just the chaos of scaling something from scratch.

"Glad to be here..."

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Product Development

◾ “Global law firm Dentons has launched DAISY, an internally developed AI tool that provides secure and adaptable generative AI capabilities to all Dentons’ personnel across Europe and Central Asia.
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“The first release of DAISY includes a secure AI chat interface, including pre-defined smart tasks such as document summarization and drafting, as well as a translation module and a browser of the firm’s policies.
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The rest of the Legaltech News article here: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/05/12/dentons-launches-internally-developed-ai-tool-daisy-across-europe/​

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◾ Reporting from the LawSites blog:
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“In a first-of-its-kind partnership, Trellis, a legal technology company that provides state trial court data and insights, is partnering with the international labor and employment law firm Fisher Phillips to integrate its AI-generated case strategy reports directly into the daily case alerts received by the firm’s attorneys whenever their clients are named in a state court case.”
​https://www.lawnext.com/2025/05/trellis-partners-with-fisher-phillips-to-deliver-ai-powered-case-strategy-reports-through-automated-alerts.html​

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◾ Friday’s end-of-week Legaltech News’ legal tech rundown - product development, hiring, partnerships and more. https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/05/16/legaltech-rundown-aaa-icdr-and-ilta-announce-new-boards-velocity-launches-on-demand-legal-services-and-more-/​

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◾ "A powerful, affordable upgrade for faster, smarter legal research.

"Built on Descrybe.ai’s popular free legal search engine, the Legal Research Toolkit (LRT) delivers premium tools designed to boost accessibility, speed, and insight—at a price that works for everyone.

"Just $10/month for non-commercial use or $20/month for commercial use. No contracts. Cancel anytime." https://bit.ly/4jfHa3F​

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Purchasing/Using Legal Tech

◾ LTSF'er and founder of StillProof posts:

"Hi all,

"I’m the founder of StillProof, a survivor-designed legal tech platform focused on digital evidence, coercive control, and court integrity. We’re still in development, but I’ve been testing early traction through TikTok to validate interest and audience alignment.
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"Here are a few numbers from the past month:
• Account launched April 14, 2025
• Followers as of May 15: 314
• Net new followers in the last 7 days: +79
• 61.2% follower growth rate this week
• Average daily follower gain (past 5 days): 10 to 15
• No ad spend, just consistent posting and conversation
• Engagement centers on DV evidence gaps, legal misuse, and parenting tool failures
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"The comments are drawing in both survivors and legal professionals. Most are focused on the emotional cost of navigating broken systems and the urgent need for safe, court-ready tools.
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"StillProof is being built directly from lived experience. The goal is to bridge what survivors know with what courts require. We’re aiming for an ethical, scalable model that combines supporter access, legal licensing, and mission-aligned funding.
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"I’m here to connect with others building in legal tech, especially around system reform, integrity-based AI, or trauma-aware platforms. Happy to share more if helpful."

Visit this links to see the charts that accompany Halely's post: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/84671719?utm_source=manual​

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◾ An article from Artificial Lawyer that covers a point with which I "violently" agree - namely, that the "data exhaust" from your corporate lawyers' deal can be as important as (and sometimes more important) to your law firm or legal department than the deal and the deal's closing themselves:

"A new white paper by Legatics explores how legal tech tools not only provide a useful efficiency gain, e.g. in helping to close transactions, but can collect huge amounts of useful data that in itself has tremendous value – perhaps as much as the tool itself – to the law firms.

"As they say: ‘Every deal your lawyers run contains data that reveals which clients are slipping away to competitors, where you’re mis-pricing work, and how to free up your partners to win more business. The firms that lead in the next decade won’t just be those with the best lawyers – they’ll be the ones that saw gold where others saw paperwork.’" https://bit.ly/436xlQN​

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◾ Joel Bijlmer posts: "Legalito’s Smart Enquiries: Bringing Clarity to a dark Corner of Conveyancing
​https://thelegalwire.ai/legalitos-smart-enquiries-bringing-clarity-to-a-dark-corner-of-conveyancing/"

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Startup Management

◾ At the opening of today's (May 19, 2025) nextNYC newsletter from Charlie O'Donnell (former VC and now VC coach and self-described "pitch deck skeptic") is a very helpful recipe for how startup leaders can "hone their short interactions" with potential investors at in-person get-togethers.

One example: "I remember years ago, a founder came up to me at Techcrunch Disrupt--this guy Mike from a company called Bread. He came up to me and just said, 'Hey, I see that you're speaking with someone--I don't want to interrupt, but my name is Mike and I'm from Bread. I'm going to e-mail you later, but I just wanted you to put a name to a face.'
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"It was brilliant. He immediately scored points by having a high EQ and being respectful of the fact that I was already engaged. The only thing I might have added would be either a line about why I specifically can help or a line about him..."

More examples here: https://bit.ly/3H0c3f3

Really good read!!

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Teaching/Learning Legal Tech

◾ “Global law firm DLA Piper is expanding the reach of its genAI-supported training programme, which it describes as like a ‘legal flight simulator’ – albeit that human experts still play a key role. Artificial Lawyer hears all about the initiative from the firm. See In-depth AL Interview below.”
​https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/05/14/how-dla-pipers-genai-backed-legal-training-simulator-works/​