The lawyer's field guide to a fast-moving field.

The LegalTech Fund has launched the LegalTech Lab, an accelerator aimed at backing 'Law Firm 2.0' startups that leverage AI and fixed-fee structures. The program offers participating legaltech startups up to $250,000 in funding alongside mentorship and strategic partner access.

Indian courts are facing a surge in fabricated, AI-generated legal citations, prompting warnings from Supreme Court justices and disciplinary risks under Bar Council rules. In response, the Supreme Court of India has released draft regulations governing the use of artificial intelligence in courts.

Thomson Reuters has introduced 'Thomson,' a proprietary $40 million large language model built specifically for legal and professional work using its Westlaw and Practical Law data. The model is being integrated into CoCounsel Legal, reducing TR's reliance on third-party foundation model providers like OpenAI and Anthropic.

At least 16 major law firms—including Latham & Watkins, Gibson Dunn, Covington, and Pillsbury—are competing to fill over 25 AI leadership roles with salaries reaching up to $440,000. Firms are struggling to recruit candidates who possess both deep technical capability and extensive legal industry experience.

Chicago-based legaltech company Litera has acquired UK legal document platform Office & Dragons to bolster its document drafting capabilities. The London-headquartered startup uses generative AI and automation to streamline mass drafting, editing, and document workflows across practice areas including litigation.

An Istanbul court has admitted to using AI for legal research and translation, while clarifying that human judges retain sole responsibility for final rulings. The deployment operates under non-binding ethical guidelines rather than formal legislation, highlighting growing international trends toward judicial AI adoption.

Indian news agency ANI has sued OpenAI for unauthorized data scraping, training on paid content, and generating false attributions. The Delhi High Court has reserved its judgment, which addresses whether data tokenization constitutes copyright infringement and if AI training qualifies as fair dealing under Indian law.

Courts across Quebec—including the Court of Appeal, Superior Court, Court of Quebec, and municipal courts—have jointly issued guidelines governing how judges use generative AI. The framework addresses security, data protection, judicial independence, and preserving the human element in court rulings.

Milan-based legal AI company Lexroom has acquired French legal research platform Query Juriste and Bulgarian legaltech startup Praven Intelekt. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the founding teams of both startups will join Lexroom as it expands its AI-powered research and drafting platform into France and Bulgaria.

Kirkland & Ellis has committed $500 million to build its own proprietary AI platform spanning litigation, transactions, and investment funds. The law firm has assembled a team of more than 180 engineers and 250 lawyers to develop the technology in-house rather than purchasing third-party tools.

The New Mexico Supreme Court imposed a $5,000 fine on a criminal defense attorney who submitted an appellate brief containing errors generated by generative AI. The fine follows the lawyer's admission that the AI-generated text was used in a murder conviction appeal.

Chilean legal AI startup Magnar secured $8 million in Series A funding. The round included new investment from Argentine law firm Beccar Varela alongside existing investor Carey, a prominent Chilean firm.

Legaltech startup Xapien secured £41.4 million in a growth round led by Spectrum Equity with participation from YFM Equity Partners. The company will use the funds to expand its US presence and scale its AI-native platform that automates third-party due diligence and continuous risk monitoring for legal and compliance teams.

White & Case has made an undisclosed strategic investment in Clauze.AI, a Saudi Arabia-based legal AI platform. Clauze.AI develops artificial intelligence solutions focused on contract review, corporate governance, and due diligence.

China's Supreme People's Court released guidance cases addressing emerging unfair competition issues, including AI-generated fake product reviews and browser extensions that insert AI assistants while stripping revenues from third-party sites. The guidance signals enforcement priorities for Chinese lower courts regarding tech platforms and AI misuse.

A survey of 115 Dutch legal professionals by Legal Benchmarks revealed that 63.5% use AI for legal research daily, with adoption highest among junior lawyers. However, 67.8% reported that the initial AI-generated output is usable only half the time or less, with hallucinated or invented law cited as the least acceptable error.

Boston University law professors Jessica Silbey and Woodrow Hartzog published a paper proposing a functional test to define 'AI slop' based on exertion, imposition on recipients, and domain degradation rather than content quality. The proposal arrives as courts face thousands of cases involving AI hallucinations and new transparency mandates under the EU AI Act and California's SB 942 take effect.

Canadian judicial and administrative bodies—including the Canadian Judicial Council and the Federal Court—have updated guidelines regulating AI use in decision-making. The frameworks strictly prohibit judges and tribunal members from delegating decision-making authority or evidence analysis to AI, while setting standards for transparency, explainability, and human oversight.

Thomson Reuters argued to the Third Circuit that a U.S. Department of Justice statement flagged by defunct legal tech startup Ross Intelligence does not support Ross's fair-use defense. The filing comes in Ross's interlocutory appeal of a summary judgment ruling that it infringed Westlaw headnotes to train its AI platform.

Latham & Watkins has purchased its own Nvidia GPU servers to build and customize proprietary AI models in-house. The move represents a rare, capital-intensive hardware investment by a major law firm to maintain control over its legal AI systems.