May 5, 2025 -- Issue #339

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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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ONLY FOUR DAYS TO GO

🍹🍻 NEW YORK CITY HAPPY HOUR EVENT 🍻🍹

To all our community's legal tech startup founders and their colleagues:​
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​You're invited to a very special Legal Tech StartUp Focus "Startup Leaders Happy Hour" from 6:00 pm to 8 pm on Thursday, May 8, at Jack Doyle's in New York City (located at 240 West 35th Street, at the upstairs bar).​
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​Joining us at the Happy Hour will be SF-based venture investor Yousuf Khan, a partner at Ridge Ventures, our sponsor for this event. Thank you, Yousuf and Ridge Ventures!!​
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​So, if you're in NYC on May 8, come by to hoist a drink (or two or three), meet your fellow legal tech startup leaders, and, most importantly, get to know Yousuf and his thoughts on legal tech investing.​
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​RSVP at the Eventbrite link here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/legal-tech-startup-focus-startup-leaders-happy-hour-tickets-1308517433869?aff=oddtdtcreator​

See you at the Happy Hour!!

Charlie

Exit/M&A

◾ Legaltech Hub’s Stephanie Wilkins writing:
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“Legal work platform Filevine announced a significant addition to its litigation capabilities last week with the acquisition of Parrot, an AI-driven platform for transcribing, scheduling, and managing depositions. The financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.”https://www.legaltechnologyhub.com/contents/filevine-acquires-parrot-boosting-deposition-and-ai-capabilities/​

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Fundraising

◾ From Axios’ “Pro Rata” newsletter today, April 30, 2025:
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“Supio, a legal AI platform for personal injury and mass tort plaintiff law firms, raised $60m in Series B funding. Sapphire Ventures led, joined by Mayfield and Thomson Reuters Ventures.”

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◾ The New York City Bar Association has an in-person event coming up on June 5 in NYC about startup fundraising - a topic that should be of interest to legal tech startup leaders. The description of the event appears below, as does a link where you can register.

“Description:

“This evening panel will feature leading NYC startup investors discussing current investment trends, sector activity, and the impacts of recent economic and regulatory changes. The event aims to provide lawyers, investors, and founders with critical insights for navigating the evolving investment landscape, and includes dedicated networking opportunities before and after the panel discussion.”

H/T to Russ Korins of the NYC-based Cohen Tauber Spievack & Wagner law firm for making me aware of this event. https://services.nycbar.org/EventDetail?EventKey=EMG060525&WebsiteKey=f71e12f3-524e-4f8c-a5f7-0d16ce7b3314​

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​Hiring/New Hires​
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◾ “On Monday, contract management solutions provider Ironclad announced the appointment of Dan Springer as CEO. Springer was previously a board member and CEO at Docusign.”
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/04/28/ironclad-appoints-docusigns-dan-springer-as-ceo-/​

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JusticeTech/A2J

◾ Judge Scott Schlegel discusses how the court system’s measured and continuous adoption of well-tested digital tools can yield substantial improvements for judges, litigants (especially those representing themselves), and counsel.
​https://open.substack.com/pub/judgeschlegel/p/the-next-chapter-in-court-modernization?r=1cv2&utm_medium=ios​

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LegalEd

◾ From the LawSites blog:
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"Hence Technologies has unveiled Hence Global, an AI-powered platform designed to help businesses and their legal counsel manage geopolitical uncertainties by providing customized risk analysis and insights tailored to specific business roles and needs.”
​https://www.lawnext.com/2025/05/ai-powered-platform-launches-to-help-companies-and-their-counsel-navigate-global-geopolitical-risks.html​

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◾ Joel Bijlmer posts: "We are tapping into supercomputers for tasks we used to do in our heads. According to OpenAI’s CEO, adding simple responses such as “thank you” to ChatGPT can result in millions of dollars in costs for the company.

"Read the full article here: https://thelegalwire.ai/the-carbon-cost-of-your-thank-you-what-happens-when-ai-runs-out-of-power/"

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Partnerships/Business Development​
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◾ “Dioptra, the AI-powered contract review platform favoured by Wilson Sonsini, has announced a partnership with LawVu, the cloud-based legal workspace. The venture is aimed at inhouse lawyers.”
​https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/04/30/dioptra-lawvu-partner-for-inhouse-ai-contract-review/​

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Product Development

◾ "Summize Launches Next Generation of Its CLM Platform With AI Agents

"The new version of Summize’s platform aims to focus on tackling more complex tasks in contract management with a multi-AI agent approach."

Read the entire Legaltech News article here: https://bit.ly/3ETnFzz​

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◾ Changes at legal tech company, LegalSifter, what Richard Tromans calls a true “legal tech OG.”
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“LegalSifter has a good claim to being a ‘legal AI OG’. After starting in 2014, they were one of the first companies to apply NLP/ML to contract review for inhouse teams. Now, after changes at the top, they’re ‘relaunching’, along with some new genAI capabilities.”
​https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/05/02/meet-the-new-improved-legalsifter/​

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◾ Legaltech News’ legal tech rundown:
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“The fast-paced legal tech world is constantly evolving. At Legaltech News, we always try to bring you the latest news on hirings, product and feature releases, new integrations, legal tech mergers and acquisitions, and more. The Legaltech Rundown is a weekly update of legal tech happenings that might have gone under the radar.”
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/05/02/legaltech-rundown-acc-launches-in-house-ai-toolkit-supio-debuts-new-personal-injury-tools-and-more/​

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◾ From Artificial Lawyer:
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“Coheso, an AI-powered legal front door and work management platform for inhouse legal and compliance teams, is launching what it calls a universal CLM connector. It will provide ‘seamless integration and granular data mapping’ with contract management providers.”
​https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/04/30/coheso-adds-universal-clm-connector-to-legal-ai-front-door/​

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Purchasing/Using Legal Tech

◾ Legaltech News reports:
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“When UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced the approval of the establishment of a Regulatory Intelligence Office within the cabinet last week, it signalled a shift towards legal technology in the Middle East in more ways than one.
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“The country is adopting AI-friendly policies at the same time as the legal tech community prepares to revolutionise the industry in areas from contract management to arbitration.” https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/04/25/uae-legal-tech-scene-heats-up-amid-tech-friendly-government/​

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◾ Joel Bijlmer of The LegalWire posts: "Anyone who’s spent time in due diligence, particularly in M&A, knows the drill. Hours combing through data rooms, sorting out document gaps, manually checking clauses, compiling draft reports. It’s a methodical process, and one that hasn’t changed much in decades. But Jurimesh, a Belgium-based legal tech startup, is asking a simple question: what if due diligence didn’t have to be such a slog?
​https://thelegalwire.ai/jurimesh-and-the-quest-to-fix-legal-due-diligence/ "

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◾ Below is a link to an especially good interview of Rob Ameerun, founder of Europe’s annual Lexpro conference, by Legaltech Hub’s Stephanie Wilkins.
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“LTH recently sat down for a conversation with Ameerun, where he shared candid insights on the cautious but steady rise of AI adoption, the growing alignment between legal ops and innovation teams, and why sustainable change—not flashy disruption—will define the next era of legal tech in Europe.”
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One of many $$Quotes from the interview; this one on the importance of change management when it comes to successful tech adoption:
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“By contrast, the organisations that struggle often treat tech like furniture: something you buy, install, and expect everyone to use without question. There’s usually little alignment with day-to-day workflows, limited training, and an assumption that “if we build it, they will come.”
​https://www.legaltechnologyhub.com/contents/checking-in-on-the-current-state-of-legal-tech-and-innovation-in-europe/​

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◾ The rise (return?) of who this article calls the “MacGyver lawyer” - and how law firm and in-house team leaders (who have institution-based policies that are geared to restrict “rogue” innovation) can learn to appreciate and manage the MacGyver lawyer’s behavior.
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“Another interesting feature that has emerged in recent months, as GenAI tools proliferate in enterprises, is the reappearance of the resourceful, self-sufficient, slightly rogue and tech-savvy subject matter expert. I’ll call it the return of the MacGyver lawyer.”
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$$Quote: “Some people call this ‘vibe lawyering.’ Honestly, it’s not a phrase I love, but I get the idea: lawyers using intuition, experimentation, and new and/or unconventional tech to get things done.”
​https://open.substack.com/pub/lawwhatsnext/p/control-freaks-and-chaos-agents-how?r=1cv2&utm_medium=ios​

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◾ Great win for Legora, as reported by Legal IT Insider:
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“Cleary Gottlieb announced today (1 May) that it has signed up with GenAI startup Legora, following a successful pilot program in 2024. The strategic partnership will see Cleary roll out Legora’s suite of AI-driven services, including new product features, across the firm. Legora officially launched in the United States in March.”
​https://legaltechnology.com/2025/05/01/cleary-gottlieb-to-roll-out-legora-across-the-firm/​

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◾ From Legaltech News:
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“[Law firm Troutman Pepper] turned to its internal gen AI chatbot and agentic AI workflows to better manage its recent merger incorporating Locke Lord.”
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Fantastic article explaining how Troutman Pepper’s GenAI chatbot, called Athena, handled tasks associated with a law firm merger and how that task-handling inspired other, internal and client-facing, uses for Athena.
​https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/05/02/how-troutman-pepper-locke-used-gen-ai-to-streamline-its-firm-merger-process/​

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Startup Management

◾ Below is a link to The LegalWire's worldwide legal tech map. The map is a work in progress because you'll see after clicking on the link that if your company or organization isn't already on the map, The LegalWire invites you to send it information to remedy that omission. https://bit.ly/4cPDDaq​

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Teaching/Learning Legal Tech

◾ Here’s an article about several Yale Law School classes that address GenAI’s use in delivering legal services.
​https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/charting-new-courses-artificial-intelligence​