AI × Law

Italian legal AI operating system Lexroom has acquired Sofia-based Praven Intelekt, marking its entry into Central and Eastern Europe. The deal integrates Praven Intelekt's dataset of 1.2 million Bulgarian and European legal documents and 19,000 registered users into Lexroom's expanding European network.

Former Big Law partner Patrick Danylyszyn has launched Overton Venture Capital with a $50 million inaugural fund. The firm will focus on early-stage legal tech and AI startups targeting the legal industry.

China’s Supreme People's Court has issued its first national judicial guidance on AI disputes, addressing IP infringement, training data disclosure burdens, personality rights for voice/likeness cloning, and autonomous vehicle product liability. Notably, the guidance sidesteps whether AI-generated outputs are copyrightable, leaving national consensus on AI authorship unresolved.

A federal judge refused to grant xAI a preliminary injunction against Minnesota's law penalizing AI companies up to $500,000 when users create nonconsensual sexualized deepfakes. The court ruled xAI failed to show irreparable harm after already disabling its Grok Imagine nudification tool in the state, prompting xAI to file a notice of appeal.

The landmark copyright dispute between The New York Times, OpenAI, and Microsoft entered a key phase as all parties filed motions for summary judgment in New York federal court. OpenAI cited recent fair-use rulings in Kadrey v. Meta and Bartz v. Anthropic, while the Times argued those cases do not apply because ChatGPT outputs create direct market substitutes for its journalism.

The Alabama State Bar has issued new ethics guidance addressing key questions and practical standards for attorneys using artificial intelligence in their practice.

A global database tracking AI-generated content in legal proceedings found fake citations and hallucinations in over 2,000 court decisions since 2023, with more than 1,300 occurring in U.S. cases. While hallucination rates have plateaued due to better tools and awareness, self-represented litigants using free models account for the majority of incidents.

Legal technology and AI pioneer Evan Shenkman has joined advisory firm Baretz + Brunelle as a partner in New York after a 25-year law firm career. Shenkman previously served as Chief Innovation Officer at Fisher & Phillips, where he led the early rollout of generative AI tools.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in the Southern District of New York backing OpenAI against copyright claims by the New York Times and other media outlets. The government argued that AI model training is an extraordinarily transformative fair use and warned that restricting it would jeopardize U.S. national security and competitiveness against foreign adversaries like China.

Milan-based legal AI startup Lexroom has executed its first two acquisitions just four months after raising a $50 million Series B round. The transactions are designed to accelerate the company's product expansion in the legal sector.

Global law firm Freshfields has appointed Ram Komarraju, former Managing Director of Technology at CLS, as its new Chief Information Officer. Komarraju will lead the firm's global technology platform evolution, enterprise AI adoption, and innovation strategy.

Concorda, an AI platform designed for litigation teams, has raised $3.8 million in seed funding. The startup plans to use the capital to expand its engineering team and accelerate customer acquisition.

Harvey has surpassed $350 million in annual recurring revenue, up from $190 million earlier in the year, and now serves over 2,400 customers including 75 Am Law 100 firms. European competitor Legora has grown faster in percentage terms, tripling its ARR to roughly $150 million across more than 1,500 organizations.

Authors involved in the $1.5 billion Anthropic copyright class action settlement are reporting widespread errors as publishers and literary agents file competing claims on payment payouts. Conflicts center on whether book rights had reverted to authors prior to the settlement's August 2022 cutoff date.

The Department of Justice filed a brief in the New York Times v. OpenAI copyright lawsuit, taking a strong stance that AI training constitutes fair use. The DOJ argued that a contrary ruling would harm market competition, disproportionately benefit legacy media outlets, and create high licensing barriers that favor tech giants over smaller innovators.

Quebec's judicial bodies have jointly issued guidelines barring judges from using generative AI for legal reasoning, assessing evidence, or drafting decision outcomes. The rules permit limited administrative and drafting assistance, but require judges to retain full responsibility for verifying accuracy and maintaining confidentiality.

Stanford Law School announced the launch of liftlab, an academic AI initiative focused on legal research, prototyping, and industry collaboration led by Professor Julian Nyarko and Megan Ma. Founding advisors include legal-tech company Harvey alongside law firms Cleary Gottlieb, Davis Wright Tremaine, and Vorys.

Kirkland & Ellis is bypassing off-the-shelf software to build its own custom generative AI platform, committing $500 million over four years funded directly from revenues. The firm aims to leverage its proprietary workflows and data to move toward value-based pricing, retaining complete ownership of the finished technology.

GCVC has emerged from stealth to invest in early-stage legal tech, compliance, and regtech startups, backed by Wilson Sonsini as its first law firm investor. The fund's LPs include over 50 current and former general counsels from major companies like Salesforce, Rippling, and ElevenLabs, with initial investments already made in Sandstone and patent AI platform Stilta.

New York startup Blee raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Fin Capital and SMBC Fin Atlas Beyond Fund, bringing its total raised to $27 million. Blee's platform automates legal and compliance checks on marketing content against regulatory and internal rules for enterprise clients including Expedia and PayPal.