November 10, 2025 -- Issue #367
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
◾ Legal Tech StartUp Focus is genuinely thrilled to be a media partner with Cosmonauts for the Legal Innovators New York event that will be taking place in New York City on November 19 - 20, 2025 at the offices of Latham & Watkins. With this event, Cosmonauts is partnering with the incomparable Artificial Lawyer platform to bring anyone interested in legal tech a wide-ranging program - described best at the Cosmonauts' website:
"From enlightening panel sessions to interactive workshops and dynamic networking events, our 2025 program is meticulously curated to inspire, educate, and empower. The future of law beckons at Legal Innovators New York, where innovation flourishes boundlessly, and the opportunities are endless."
Be part of law practice's future and attend the event!!
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◾ I just received the following in an email from LTSF community member Russ Korins, a lawyer and tech leader at the NYC law firm, Cohen Tauber Spievack & Wagner (CTSW). Russ's fireside chats are extraordinarily informative and engaging. So, please do consider attending.
"Gaining Traction, Scaling Up: Lessons from a Venture Five Years On
With Ben Doran, Co-Founder and CPO, Passthrough
Tuesday, November 19, 2025 12:00 – 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time
"Passthrough started in 2020 to streamline the historically tedious and inefficient processes of gathering and managing fund formation documents. Today, this hybrid fintech/legaltech platform serves law firms, fund administrators, and tech providers in handling investor onboarding and in financial crime compliance.
"The company raised $10 million in early 2023. Passthrough’s five-year history offers lessons and best practices for other founders in all areas of tech.
"In a conversation with CTSW attorney Russ Korins, that’s what Passthrough co-founder Ben Doran will be here to discuss:
How Passthrough has determined its target markets and how these have evolved iteratively over time
How customer listening and feedback is incorporated into product development—no small feat given the particular needs and demands of fund formation stakeholders
Navigating the choice between all-in-one and integration with best-of-breed services, discussing the company’s recently announced integration with Allvue as a case study
The strategies and decisions in growing to a team of 35 – and how he decided who to add when
Founders, executives, investors, advisors, and anyone else interested in listening to lessons of relative longevity in the early-stage venture world are welcome to attend. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_AkcD6v8fTn2gOHJXL0q6bQ
◾ Day 1 (November 19, 2025) of the Legal Innovators New York event is “Private Practice Day” and will take place at the offices of Latham & Watkins in New York City
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"Whether you're a seasoned law firm partner, a forward-thinking general counsel, a tech-savvy legal operations professional, a trailblazing legal tech startup, or an investor with an eye on the future, Legal Innovators New York is where you belong."
And when planning to attend the Legal Innovators New York event later this month, don't forget that the event's organizer, Cosmonauts, has kindly made complimentary and discounted ticket offers available to members of the Legal Tech StartUp Focus community. Details below:
Obtain a 10% discount on a ticket to the Legal Innovators New York event if you're a member of the team at a legal tech solutions provider by using the code LTSF10 when registering for the event at:https://www.legalinnovatorsnewyork.com/event-details/legal-innovators-new-york.
Subject to the qualification requirements stated below, and also subject to a ticket-quantity limitation also stated below, obtain a complimentary ticket to the Legal Innovators New York event when registering for the event at: https://www.legalinnovatorsnewyork.com/express-registration.
(Please note, the above complimentary ticket offer is only available to (a) private practice legal professionals who are licensed lawyers at the senior associate level or above, or (b) in-house legal department team members who are licensed lawyers or legal operations professionals. Please also note, only twenty (20) complimentary tickets are on offer on a first-come/first-served basis.)
Exit/M&A
◾ From the Iberian Lawyer website:
"Cuatrecasas has advised Cleon Capital, the Italian-Spanish advisor specialising in European companies, on the acquisition of Lexer, a leading technology and comprehensive provider of legal and debt collection services for companies. With this transaction, Cleon aims to boost its new phase of growth in the alternative legal service providers (ALSP) sector."
"The firm has also advised Cleon-Lexer on the acquisition of Zelsior, a legaltech company providing procedural and legal services in credit management at the national level."
https://iberianlawyer.com/cuatrecasas-advises-cleon-capital-on-the-acquisition-of-lexer-and-zelsior/
Fundraising
◾ Law.com posts:
"On Tuesday [November 4, 2025], legal operations startup Ruli AI announced that it raised $6 million in a seed funding round led by Album VC and with participation from SignalFire, PJC, Foothill Ventures, Mana and Genius Ventures."
"Co-founded in 2024 by former Allen & Overy associate Bryan Lee and former Meta engineer Xi Sun, Ruli developed AI-powered tools for in-house legal professionals including Legal Hub for automated legal intake, Copilot for knowledge management and document review, and a Microsoft Word extension to embed AI directly into legal drafting workflows."
https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/11/04/in-house-legal-operations-startup-ruli-ai-announces-6m-in-seed-funding-/
◾ Reporting from Law.com:
"On Tuesday [October 4, 2025], Swiss legal tech artificial intelligence startup DeepJudge announced that it raised $42 million in a Series A funding round led by Felicis with participation from Coatue.
"DeepJudge aims to use this funding to further develop its product as well as expand its international reach. The startup currently operates in Switzerland, the U.S. and Canada."
https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/11/04/swiss-legal-tech-startup-deepjudge-closes-42m-in-series-a-funding/
◾ From the tech.eu website:
"GitLaw, an AI legal companion built for businesses, has raised a $3 million pre-seed round led by Jackson Square Ventures, with participation from Flex Capital, Background Capital, and several angel investors.
"Founded in 2025 by serial entrepreneur Nick Holzherr, GitLaw’s mission is to make legal documents radically more accessible through AI-driven automation."
https://tech.eu/2025/11/03/gitlaw-launches-ai-and-closes-3m-pre-seed-led-by-jackson-square-ventures/
◾ From the Firm Prospects press release yesterday:
“BOSTON, Nov. 5, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Firm Prospects, a leading talent, market intelligence and business development platform for the legal industry, today announced a strategic growth investment from The Brydon Group that will fuel the company's next chapter of innovation and market expansion.”
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/firm-prospects-announces-strategic-investment-by-the-brydon-group-302605299.html
Hiring/New Hires
◾ Legal IT Insider reports:
"Leading legal operations association CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations Consortium) today (5 November) announced what it describes as a historic expansion of its board and modernisation of its governance. Following a comprehensive nomination and evaluation process led by the CLOC Nominating Committee, CLOC’s Board is growing from 11 to 16 directors, the largest expansion in its 10-year history. The 2026 Board brings together a diverse slate of respected legal operations leaders, in-house counsel, and technology innovators to drive the organisation’s long-term strategy and impact."
The entire article (including a listing of the all of
CLOC's board members) is at this link: https://legaltechnology.com/2025/11/05/cloc-unveils-expanded-board-and-modernised-governance/
◾ From the LawSites‘s blog:
“Steno, a tech-enabled provider of legal support and court reporting services, has brought on two experienced legal tech executives to help it continue to scale its litigation support business beyond its core court reporting roots.
“The Los Angeles-based company announced today that it has hired Adam Camras as general manager and senior vice president of litigation support, and Sean Twersky as senior vice president of operations.”
https://www.lawnext.com/2025/11/steno-bolsters-its-leadership-team-with-two-strategic-hires-from-infotrack-and-evenup.html
Partnerships/Business Development
◾ Here’s the post’s caption from Law.com:
“Legaltech Rundown: Thomson Reuters Joins NetDocuments' Interoperability Program, Parambil Releases Medical Negligence Templates and More”
And here’s the link to this week’s legal tech rundown post.
https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/11/07/legaltech-rundown-thomson-reuters-joins-netdocuments-interoperability-program-parambil-releases-medical-negligence-templates-and-more-/
Product Development
◾ From Bob Ambrogi’s LawSites blog:
“AJ Shankar, CEO and founder of e-discovery company Everlaw, used the company’s annual Everlaw Summit in San Francisco to announce that Deep Dive, a new AI tool within the company’s platform that enables legal teams to ask questions across millions of documents, will reach general availability before the end of the year following a successful eight-month beta testing program.”
“Perhaps equally significant was Everlaw’s announcement of a major restructuring of its AI pricing model. Starting with the company’s October release, three key AI features – Review Assistant for single documents, Writing Assistant in Story Builder, and Deposition Analyzer – will be included in the core per-gigabyte rate at no additional charge. Despite adding these features, Everlaw is not increasing its per-gigabyte pricing.”
https://www.lawnext.com/2025/11/everlaw-announces-general-availability-of-ai-deep-dive-as-well-as-major-pricing-changes-at-annual-summit.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=LawSitesBlog-2025-11-03-51545
◾ From Law.com:
"Thomson Reuters will be launching agentic AI and document review features for CoCounsel Legal in the near future.
"The features are currently undergoing beta testing with a select number of customers.
"The beta testing will expand in the coming months."
The entire Law.com post can be found here: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/11/05/thomson-reuters-announces-upcoming-agentic-ai-features-for-cocounsel-legal-/
◾ From Legal IT Insider:
“Now, semantic search is available across the DMS, opening up possibilities not just for lawyers searching for documents, but for agentic AI tools to search, retrieve and take actions based upon the documents they find.”
$$Quote: “The new search capability ties in with NetDocuments’ ability now to run AI profiling at scale in the background, so that firms can accurately label hundreds of millions of documents, creating accurate and granular metadata.”
https://legaltechnology.com/2025/11/06/netdocuments-demos-semantic-search-ai-profiling-at-scale-at-inspire-emea/
◾ Legal IT Insider posts:
“Legal AI platform Legora today (7 November) announced a new feature called “Legora Portal”. The Portal is a collaboration space which is accessible to both law firms and their clients, which can be white labelled so it feels like an extension of the firm. Law firms will be able to publish workflows, playbooks and other content which clients can directly access. Still in its design phase with a group of firms including Bird & Bird, Cleary Gottlieb, Deloitte, Linklaters, MinterEllison and others, the feature is set to become available to all customers in Q1 2026.”
My own thought about this feature release:
Yes, I know it would be technically complicated to implement, what with issue involving security, permission-granting, and the like. But, that said, can we someday have platforms like Legora’s and Harvey’s develop collaboration tools where, on deals, for example, third parties like investment banks, accountants, special deal-counsel, etc. and even counsel on the side of the deal can - along with the app-subscriber’s client - collaborate on the deal via a portal in the legal tech vendor’s app?
https://legaltechnology.com/2025/11/07/legora-announces-new-collaboration-feature-legora-portal/
◾ From the LawSites blog:
“The legal AI platform Alexi has launched what it is calling the most comprehensive AI workflow library on the market, designed to help law firms move beyond risky AI experimentation toward reliable, scalable automation of legal work.
“The Toronto-based company introduced the Workflow Library in September, describing it as a solution developed for firms that are seeking to adopt AI to automate high-volume and high-value legal tasks while maintaining the quality, compliance, and consistency standards required in legal practice.”
https://www.lawnext.com/2025/11/alexi-launches-comprehensive-workflow-library-to-automate-transactional-and-litigation-tasks.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=LawSitesBlog-2025-11-07-51619
◾ From Artificial Lawyer:
"Chamelio, a legal intelligence platform focused on inhouse teams, has launched Flows, a new AI-powered workflow engine that ‘reimagines how legal work moves across organisations’.
"As the company explained, the agentic system ‘connects requests, approvals, and documents into one intelligent process, allowing legal departments to automate intake, streamline collaboration, and maintain full visibility over every task’."https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/11/03/chamelio-launches-agentic-flows-for-inhouse-teams/
Purchasing/Using Legal Tech
◾ Law.com posts:
"Law firms are increasingly fielding questions from clients about how in-house legal departments can adopt and use generative artificial intelligence. For some firms, those requests have become so frequent that they have taken it upon themselves to show clients the ropes.
"At Honigman, the demand from in-house counsel was high enough that during the firm’s annual innovation symposium in September, Honigman offered an AI training workshop for clients in partnership with digital legal training platform Hotshot."
https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/10/30/clients-are-turning-to-law-firms-for-gen-ai-training-/
◾ From Law.com:
"Legal departments face more pressure than law firms to use generative artificial intelligence-powered legal tools, and are more likely to adopt them in search of cost reductions, according to a report released last week.
"E-discovery provider DISCO’s new white paper, "Legal AI: Driving the Future of the Profession," includes findings from a survey of 112 legal professionals, conducted in late summer 2025 in collaboration with Ari Kaplan Advisors. Respondents were split evenly between law firms and in-house teams, and included paralegals, attorneys, managers, directors of e-discovery, directors in other areas and legal operations leaders."
Get more insight from the white paper at the full Law.com post that's here: https://www.law.com/legaltechnews/2025/11/03/legal-departments-are-implementing-gen-ai-to-save-money-law-firms-are-using-it-to-stand-out-/?kw=Legal+Departments+Are+Implementing+Gen+AI+to+Save+Money.+Law+Firms+Are+Using+It+to+Stand+Out.&utm_source=email&utm_medium=enl&utm_campaign=afternoonupdate&utm_content=20251103&utm_term=ltn&oly_enc_id=6788E2252056B4A
◾ From the ZentLaw press release that was issued today:
SUNNYVALE (Nov. 3, 2025) – ZentLaw, the leader in innovative legal solutions, today announced the launch of Zent.AI, the AI-native Alternative Legal Services Provider (AiLSP). Zent.AI’s context-driven agentic AI platform, combined with the expertise of ZentLaw’s embedded legal talent, enable enterprise and institutional legal teams to address unique needs in real-time and accelerate solutions at scale, powering the evolution of legal services.
Zent.AI delivers highly contextual agentic AI, informed and guided by ZentLaw’s professional legal talent, working in partnership with corporate and institutional legal teams. By uniting advanced AI capabilities with the proven expertise of ZentLaw’s legal professionals, including attorneys, contracts managers, compliance specialists, legal operations leaders, paralegals, and more, Zent.AI creates a seamless model of delivery and serves as a force-multiplier for every professional in the ecosystem.
The entire press release can be accessed at this link: https://network-295075.mn.co/posts/93159212?utm_source=manual
◾ A post from Law.com:
"Al-Tamimi & Co., with offices in the Middle East and North Africa, has launched AI suite Legora firm-wide, the first Middle East law firm client to install an Arabic version of the platform in a major milestone for the Stockholm-born legal AI startup.
“'We're starting the partnership in the UAE and moving towards a full-firm rollout over time,' a Legora spokesperson said. 'We have not announced any further plans for other [Middle East] markets at this time.'”
◾ A post from new community member, Liyakathali KT: "I’m Liyakathali, Co-Founder of Anekha. We combine deep industry research with AI-driven system design. Our latest work focuses on a legal tech platform that addresses core challenges faced by lawyers and legal teams worldwide. #Fundraising #Lawyer #startup #Investing#LegalTech #ProductDevelopment #VentureCapital #PreSeedFunding
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◾ Law.com reporting here:
"Many large law firms have taken it upon themselves to adopt or build generative artificial intelligence tools in their own ways. Some law firms’ gen AI implementation efforts originate with their IT teams, while others are driven by the firm’s legal professionals, or even by a completely new AI-focused subdivision.
"For Ropes & Gray, a significant driver of AI adoption has been the firm’s real estate practice, which has taken the lead in gen AI implementation with guidance from its legal technology team."
Having attended the FutureLawyer USA event last month, which took place at Ropes & Gray's Boston office, I had the opportunity to meet some of the firm's innovation team members and hear from firm leaders who spoke at the event about the firm's approach to legal tech adoption. I came away very favorably impressed by that approach and those team members. I'm not surprised by the forward-thinking and proactive approach taken by Ropes & Gray's real estate practice group regarding GenAI use within that group.
Regulation
◾ The link below is to a LinkedIn post from Ezra Clark, Up Counsel's founder, that discusses how OpenAI is "stepping back" from providing legal advice. As Ezra says in his post:
"Hot Off the Press: ChatGPT Is Steppping Back from Offering Legal Advice
"OpenAl's public Usage Policies were updated effective Oct 29, 2025. The current page shows that effective date and adds a clearer rule against giving "tailored advice that requires a license... such as legal or medical advice, without appropriate involvement by a licensed professional.”
"While OpenAI has not officially commented on the change, the move is widely seen as an attempt to mitigate legal risks. The use of AI for sensitive professional advice remains a poorly regulated area, creating potential liability for both the company and its users. This comes as a growing number of people turn to chatbots for complex consultations, with some reports even claiming AI has helped in legal cases."
Much more at the link (including Ezra's setting out some of what he sees following from this move by OpenAI): https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ezrajclark_legaltech-ai-chatgpt-activity-7390815754750877697-Ndxm?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAACjKkUBuYvfoBWwBGd7KKABZw3jrdiBcc0
◾ A post from Artificial Lawyer on the news that OpenAI is, as one commentator put it, "stepping back" from providing legal advice to its chatbot users:
"Social media is alight with news that OpenAI has changed its terms, with a commitment not to provide ‘legal advice’, but AL took a look and it still does a lot that many would consider well within a lawyer’s work."
". . . AL asked GPT5 today – after the [OpenAI usage] terms changed – for some legal help and it was more than happy to oblige.
"In this entirely experimental example, AL asked the LLM: ‘Can you tell me how to hire a new employee?’ It explained in detail all the main English law areas connected to this. Then AL asked it to make an employment contract, with reference to a range of variables.
"And to really test it, AL then asked if it could help with a special clause because the (fictional) potential employee was about to retire. It said, yes, and explained line by line how the new clause should read.
"AL then thanked the LLM for its ‘legal advice’. At this point it said that ‘this isn’t legal advice’….and that it was just explaining how the law works and showing ‘compliant wording, and generating ‘practical document templates’ ….that inevitably could still be used by anyone who asks those questions."
Read the full post from Artificial Lawyer, where there's much more to learn, by clicking on this link: https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/11/03/openai-stops-giving-legal-advice-but-has-it-really/
◾ Below is a link to a LinkedIn post by Bob Ambrogi about defunct startup ROSS Intelligence's appeal of a trial judge’s copyright rulings in favor of Thomson Reuters in the long running litigation between these two parties.
"'No one can own the law.' As the long-running copyright litigation between Thomson Reuters and ROSS Intelligence moves to an appeal, amicus curiae have come out in force to support the now-shuttered startup's position that it did not violate TR's copyrights. Among those filing briefs are legal research and tech startups, civil liberties and open-information groups, industry trade associations, computer scientists, and law professors. I've collected the briefs and put together this summary of who filed them and what they're arguing."
Here's the link to Bob's post on LinkedIn (where access to Bob's full article on his LawSites blog can be found):
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/robertambrogi_no-one-can-own-the-law-amici-come-out-activity-7391472559663247360-Bteg?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAACjKkUBuYvfoBWwBGd7KKABZw3jrdiBcc0
◾ LTSF community member, Dixon Melitt James, posts: "Join me at Dubai Arbitration Week on November 10
"Introducing aGen, AI Stack for Legal 🤖
"The future of legal operations is about intelligent agents who understand, write, and communicate at the speed of modern law.
aGen empowers every legal team to turn legal data into action.https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7391338417084772352/ "
Regulatory Reform
◾ Bloomberg Law post (linked below):
"Tennessee is looking at non-lawyer ownership of law firms, a possibility that would create rare access to the profession for investors and corporations.
"The state Supreme Court, which says it is worried about an insufficient supply of legal services, is taking comments on whether it should loosen ownership rules. The goal is “to ensure that all Tennesseans have access to affordable quality legal services,” the court said in an order last month."https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/law-firm-ownership-model-eyed-for-scary-shakeup-in-tennessee?source=newsletter&item=body-link®ion=text-section
Startup Management
◾ From the Financial Times on November 2, 2025:
"Artificial intelligence groups are on a hiring spree for a rare kind of software developer who can code and talk to customers, as they race to increase adoption of their cutting-edge technology. Anthropic, OpenAI and Cohere are recruiting for so-called forward-deployed engineers, a new job for generative AI companies, as part of a push to generate more revenues by installing specialists within businesses to help them customise their AI models."
◾ From Greg Lambert of 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, some thoughts on Robin AI's financial woes:
"I’ve been thinking about a story that I believe deserves more attention than it’s getting.
"Robin AI, once positioned as a rising star in legal AI, has missed its funding round, cut a third of its staff, and landed on a distressed sale marketplace. The question isn’t whether this is unfortunate. It’s whether this is a harbinger. (Non-Billable)
"Is Robin AI’s collapse a one-off execution failure, or the first visible crack in a legal tech AI bubble?"
Teaching/Learning Legal Tech
◾ From Reuters:
“At 1,500-lawyer Ropes & Gray, new associates can now allocate up to 20% of their required billable hours for AI training and simulations, including time spent experimenting on their own and in groups. A firm spokesperson said its first-year billable hour target is generally 1,900 hours, a requirement the lawyers ‘consistently meet.’"
Full article here: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/law-firms-ai-experiment-gives-lawyers-break-billable-hours-2025-11-06/
A weekly newsletter with links to articles from around the world that help legal tech startup leaders (and their customers and their investors) succeed in business
November 3, 2025 -- Issue #366 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. If you enjoy reading this digest, please forward it to others with an interest in legal tech startups. Readers who aren't already members of the LTSF community and who wish to join can do so here....
October 27, 2025 -- Issue #365 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. If you enjoy reading this digest, please forward it to others with an interest in legal tech startups. Readers who aren't already members of the LTSF community and who wish to join can do so here....
October 20, 2025 — Issue #364 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. If you enjoy reading this digest, please forward it to others with an interest in legal tech startups. Readers who aren't already members of the LTSF community and who wish to join can do so here. Please...