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

Courts worldwide are cracking down on AI misuse, with judges sanctioning lawyers in Mississippi and Israel for citing fake AI-generated precedents. Additionally, a NY federal court ruled that a criminal suspect's conversations with Anthropic's Claude were not protected by attorney-client privilege.

Former Sidley Austin executive committee chair Mike Schmidtberger has joined AI-native startup firm Norm Law as chairman and head of investment funds and regulatory. The firm, launched alongside AI platform Norm Ai, uses lawyer-designed AI agents to automate legal and compliance workflows for financial services clients.

A Thomson Reuters survey of 869 Australian legal professionals revealed that nearly one in three law firm workers use unapproved generative AI tools at work, while 32% want their firms to adopt a formal GenAI assistant. Additionally, 58% of in-house legal respondents said law firms should factor GenAI usage into their pricing and billing models.

Harvey has partnered with DeepL to integrate its Language AI engine directly into the Harvey platform for legal document translation. The integration supports over 100 languages with customized glossaries and formatting preservation, handling over a third of Harvey's total translation volume.

Law firms in Australia are evolving their legal AI adoption by integrating tools directly into daily legal workflows and broader practice tasks. While adoption is expanding across a wider range of work, firms emphasize that human judgment remains essential.

Case management platform Hona has launched Lia, an AI agent designed to handle client communications, answer case-specific questions, and follow up on medical treatment plans. The system escalates complex issues to firm staff and aims to reduce redundant tasks for personal injury lawyers.

Belgian legal tech startup LegalFly has launched Contract Intelligence, an AI-powered system of record for contract lifecycles. The tool automatically extracts and tracks obligations, renewal deadlines, notice periods, and payment terms against a company's playbooks.

Top law firms are creating dedicated AI leadership positions to manage technology adoption and strategy. Recent appointments include Jeff Westcott as Director of Practice Technology and AI Innovation at Akin Gump, and Christopher Cyrus as McDermott Will & Emery's first Director of AI Innovation.

AI-native legal platform Soxton has emerged from stealth with $2.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Moxxie Ventures. Founded by former Cooley attorney Logan Brown, the company combines automated workflows, an AI legal copilot, and human lawyer oversight to provide affordable legal services to startups.

Australian legal tech startup Mary Technology has raised A$7 million to expand its AI-powered Fact Management System globally, including opening a San Francisco office. The tool extracts key facts, builds searchable chronologies, and provides source-cited answers for litigation teams at firms like Hall & Wilcox and Maurice Blackburn.

Saudi AI startup IDRAJ has raised SAR 2.25 million ($598,000) in a pre-seed round led by ASAP Legal Tech. The platform leverages artificial intelligence to streamline corporate IPO and listing procedures by assessing regulatory requirements and managing essential documentation.

GC AI, founded by former Replit General Counsel Cecilia Ziniti, secured $60 million in Series B funding led by Scale Venture Partners and Northzone. The startup targets in-house corporate legal teams rather than law firms and reports a customer base of roughly 2,100 companies.

California lawmakers have passed a first-of-its-kind state law establishing explicit rules for how attorneys are permitted to use generative AI in their legal practice. The measure sets a significant statutory precedent for legal ethics and AI usage in the legal profession.

The Abu Dhabi Judicial Department announced plans to build an AI-powered judicial platform to support court workflows from case opening to conclusion. Operating under human supervision, the system will undergo an 18-month phased rollout beginning in September 2026.

RELX has completed its acquisition of Doctrine, a French legal intelligence and AI platform. The deal aims to accelerate the deployment of reliable, authoritative legal AI solutions by integrating Doctrine's technology into RELX's broader legal offerings.

Top corporate law firms are shifting from off-the-shelf software to building proprietary AI tools tailored to their specific workflows and knowhow. Kirkland & Ellis committed $500M to its own platform, while Goodwin Procter spends $25M annually and Freshfields partnered with Anthropic to develop custom legal tooling.

Legal AI assistant Harvey is integrating with Everlaw's litigation and evidence management platform using the Model Context Protocol. The integration allows litigators to query discovery records, build case timelines, and prepare deposition outlines without switching platforms.

Octus has launched the Octus MCP Connector, bringing its proprietary credit intelligence, covenant data, and restructuring filings directly into Harvey's legal AI platform. The integration enables joint legal and corporate clients to run litigation, diligence, and research agents using Octus data without leaving their workflow.

OpenAI is planning to launch new integrations with third-party legal software providers, allowing lawyers to interact with legal databases and negotiate contracts directly within ChatGPT. The move follows similar enterprise expansions by Anthropic and Google and comes months after OpenAI hired Ironclad co-founder Jason Boehmig.

The Church of Scientology has requested that the California Supreme Court review an appellate order that declined to sanction Boies Schiller Flexner LLP. The law firm had filed a brief containing AI-generated citation errors in an ongoing harassment and retaliation lawsuit.