AI × Law

California firm Rubin Law Office filed a proposed class action alleging Thomson Reuters executed a 'killer acquisition' by buying AI legal research startup Casetext and discontinuing its platform to eliminate a threat to Westlaw. The lawsuit claims shutting down Casetext reduced competition and drove up legal research prices.

Ivo has launched Ivo Sage, an open-source model post-trained for long-horizon contract work on DeepSeek V4 Flash, allowing legal teams and developers to download and fine-tune it. The company also introduced the Ivo-micro1 Contract Bench, a new benchmark designed to evaluate how AI handles contract judgment, restraint, and escalation.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for Thomson Reuters against ROSS Intelligence, becoming the first federal appellate court to rule on fair use in AI training. The court held that Westlaw headnotes are copyright protected and ROSS's commercial use of them for training a competing search tool was not fair use, though it noted the decision does not resolve open questions around generative AI.

California has enacted SB 574, setting strict statutory requirements for generative AI in legal practice effective January 1, 2027. The law prohibits delegating the practice of law to AI, mandates human verification of all legal citations in court filings, requires confidentiality protections for nonpublic data, and obligates lawyers to disclose AI use to the court.

The AI Policy Consortium for Law & Courts has published the second edition of its guide on authenticating digital evidence and managing deepfakes in state courts. The report highlights emerging state rules, such as Utah's Rule of Evidence 707, and recent cases where deepfake evidence resulted in dismissals or overturned findings.

A H1 2026 report from legal talent data firm Firm Prospects shows AI companies are becoming a distinct destination for Am Law 200 lawyers. Legal AI startups like Harvey, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Legora hired dozens of BigLaw lawyers in six months, primarily taking associates into "legal engineer" and product roles.

The Arizona Supreme Court has approved KPMG Law US to operate as an Alternative Business Structure, allowing non-lawyer ownership. The firm plans to offer tech-powered and AI-driven services focused on high-volume contract management and M&A regulatory compliance.

London-headquartered legal-tech provider Opus 2 is acquiring Cork-based Bundledocs, a cloud-based document management platform used by 1,900 clients across 35 countries. The acquisition aims to streamline legal workflows and build on Opus 2's AI framework, following its late-2025 acquisition of legal AI company Uncover.

Legal-tech startup Arceus raised $11M in a Series A funding round led by Greycroft, bringing its total funding to $17M. The company combines proprietary AI contract-review software with an in-house corporate law firm to handle routine transactional work for clients.

A State Farm attorney was fined in a Los Angeles court following the use of AI-generated legal hallucinations. Separately, an Oklahoma prosecutor alleged that a judge incorporated false AI citations directly into a court ruling, highlighting growing judicial concern over unchecked AI reliance.

Harvey AI has completed a strategic transaction with AI security company Guardrails AI. As part of the deal, Guardrails co-founders Shreya Rajpal and Zayd Simjee and their team joined Harvey's product and engineering unit to advance the safety and reliability of its legal AI agents.

Japanese legal research platform Legalscape has partnered with Harvey to integrate its local legal data into Harvey's platform. The collaboration aims to enhance AI-driven research capabilities specifically tailored to Japanese law.

Falcon, a Ghent-based AI-native law firm focused on commercial contracts, has raised €1.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Syndicate One. Backed by former Allen & Overy global senior partner Wim Dejonghe as an advisor, Falcon combines an AI platform with human lawyer sign-offs on a subscription model.

Federal judges are divided on whether inputting legal queries into consumer AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude waives attorney-client and work-product protections. While some courts protected pro se AI drafts, others ruled no privilege exists when represented parties use chatbots without counsel.

An Arizona appellate court overturned a 10.5-year manslaughter sentence after finding the trial judge improperly relied on an AI-generated video recreating a deceased victim speaking. The panel ruled that using synthetic voice and facial expressions to attribute unrecorded statements to a victim lacks the reliability required for constitutional due process at sentencing.

U.S. District Judge Orelia E. Merchant of the Eastern District of New York has issued a notice establishing a zero-tolerance policy for AI-generated hallucinations or fabricated legal propositions in filings. The rule warns that unverified AI material implicates Rule 11 and may warrant sanctions, though it imposes no formal disclosure or certification obligations.

London-based legal technology provider Opus 2 has acquired Cork-based Bundledocs, a cloud platform used for preparing and managing complex legal document workflows. The deal follows Opus 2's acquisition of legal AI startup Uncover as it expands its market presence and AI-assisted workflows across European law firms.

Wolters Kluwer has integrated Libra's AI workflow tools directly into its LEX legal research platform via a new add-in. The integration allows legal professionals to access generative AI capabilities within their existing research workflows rather than switching to a separate workspace.

Federal courts in Washington and Nevada are confronting expert witnesses' use of AI tools. In one instance, a court excluded an expert's testimony under Daubert after an AI-drafted report included hallucinated citations, while another court weighed discovery extensions over an expert's use of AI for text polishing.

Connecticut-based Shipman & Goodwin selected Harvey's AI platform after evaluating roughly 10 tools to streamline document review and repetitive tasks across its practice. Active users at the 160-lawyer firm report saving over 10 hours per week, allowing attorneys to redirect time toward strategy and client work.