Legal tech has its own Davos, and it’s got much better weather.
The LegalTech Fund Summit, which enters its fifth year in Scottsdale, Arizona, next week, brings together the industry’s founders, funders, and power brokers for a few days of five-star schmoozing.
I’ll be there in my cowboy boots. Come say hi and tell me what you’re building.
Mentioned in this edition: Crosby, Rami Karabibar, EvenUp, Harvey, Legora, Latham & Watkins, Lerer Hippeau, Blackletter, Cohere, Blue J, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, Stanford, Ilona Logvinova, and Adam Sterling.
Agenda
- EvenUp reminds us there are riches in niches
- What I’m reading and writing
- Inside a Big Law firm’s executive retreat
J Studios/Getty Images
Is legal AI in a bubble?
Tech stocks got clobbered last week as AI doomsayers declared a bubble burst.
Our little corner of the tech world has its own bubble to worry about.
Investors are plowing money into legal tech. Valuations are soaring. “AI-native law firms” seem to be sprouting from the ground, each with a pitch about how it’s different from Crosby.
It’s a good time to ask which of these businesses are built to last.
Last week, I spoke with Rami Karabibar, CEO of EvenUp, which sells software to personal injury law firms. It’s a niche market, but a lucrative one. EvenUp has surpassed $150 million in recurring revenue under contract and now serves more than 2,000 firms.
Karabibar has a theory about what separates legal-tech startups with staying power from those that could get swept away when the tide goes out.
It comes down to how deeply they embed themselves in their customers’ business.
EvenUp started out as something of a one-trick pony, helping plaintiff-side lawyers draft demand letters. Over the past 18 months, the company has expanded into software that helps lawyers manage their cases from start to finish.
While its product line has broadened, its target market hasn’t. Other players like Harvey and Legora build applications that serve everyone from Big Law to multinational corporations. EvenUp has never strayed from personal injury.
And Karabibar thinks that focus keeps his company bubble-proof.
Quick links
- Young money. Harvey held early talks with lawyers at Latham & Watkins about an IPO.
- A neofirm is born. Early-stage venture firm Lerer Hippeau is backing Blackletter, a new law firm started by former executives at Cohere and Blue J.
- Campus life. My colleague Aditi Bharade profiled two college students who are helping law firms figure out technology.
Big Law goes back to school
David Madison/Getty Images
How do you teach an old law firm new tricks? Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer went to Stanford to find out.
The law firm retreat, which took place over three days before the start of school, was designed to get the firm’s top brass out of their offices, said Ilona Logvinova, HSF Kramer’s chief AI officer. She wanted them to think less like lawyers and more like founders.
Thirty-one firm members traveled to Palo Alto, where they stayed together and took a bus to campus each morning. Logvinova encouraged them to pack hoodies. Only a few obliged.
The first day gave them a crash course in the state of AI. Executives heard from legal-tech founders, OpenAI representatives, Stanford researchers, and general counsels about where the tech is heading and what clients increasingly expect from their outside counsel.
On day two, the executives got their hands on AI developed at Stanford. One tool helped them turn the expertise rattling around in their heads into instructions that autonomous agents could potentially follow. The exercises were meant to close what Logvinova calls the “imagination gap” — the distance between knowing what the tech can do and actually applying it.
The lawyers weren’t the only ones learning. For Stanford, the program doubled as a dry run for its new bootcamp, Legal Engineering Academy, which launches next summer.
Adam Sterling, an associate dean at Stanford Law, said the university wanted to see how the lawyers engaged with the technology in practice, not just in theory.
Just as importantly, Sterling said, working with practitioners helps the faculty better understand the profession its students are entering and how to prepare them for the future.
The experiment suggests that preparing the next generation of lawyers may start with retraining the current one.
Please let me know what you think of the newsletter and send along your story ideas. Email me at [email protected] or text me on WhatsApp at +1 603-913-3085.
The Legal AI Insider team
Melia Robinson, senior correspondent, in New York. Alistair Barr, tech anchor, in San Francisco. Grace Lett, senior newsletters editor, in New York. Leena Rao, executive editor, in Los Angeles.
