AI × Law

Global cybersecurity leader Fortinet has acquired Virtue AI, a provider of AI runtime protection, automated AI validation, and security for autonomous AI systems. Cooley advised Virtue AI on the transaction.

Nationwide labor and employment firm Jackson Lewis is deploying Harvey across more than 60 offices following a comprehensive platform evaluation. The firm's 1,100-plus attorneys will work with Harvey's Legal Engineering team to build AI applications tailored to complex labor and employment law matters.

Major law firms are increasingly partnering with legal tech vendors—including Google Gemini, Thomson Reuters' CoCounsel, and Lineal—to co-develop tools destined for broader commercial release. In exchange for early access and direct input, firms avoid the long-term software maintenance costs of building proprietary tech.

Legal tech giants and providers are shifting toward Chinese open-weight AI models to reduce compute costs and maintain control over proprietary data. Thomson Reuters built an in-house model based on Alibaba's Qwen to handle document review, while Harvey post-trained its new Harvey Tenet model on top of Moonshot AI's open-weight Kimi K3.

Anthropic and Suno are opposing music publisher Round Hill's motion to relate its separate copyright cases against the two AI companies, arguing the actions involve distinct technologies, copyrights, and defendants. Meanwhile, a Massachusetts federal judge permitted major record labels to amend their complaint against Suno to add YouTube stream-ripping allegations while blocking their attempt to add 61,000 additional copyrighted works.

Employment law firm Jackson Lewis P.C. is expanding its artificial intelligence capabilities by deploying Harvey across its entire network of more than 1,100 attorneys in over 60 offices.

A federal judge has granted final approval to the $1.5 billion settlement in Bartz v. Anthropic, resolving claims covering roughly 500,000 books at about $3,000 per work. The court established a key precedent by holding that AI model training constitutes fair use, while storing pirated copies of copyrighted works does not.

The Singapore Judiciary has partnered with Harvey to launch a generative AI tool that summarizes case documents and evidence for Tribunal Magistrates and self-represented litigants in Small Claims Tribunals. The initiative aims to streamline case preparation, manage large volumes of digital evidence like messaging logs, and expand access to justice.

AmLaw 20 firm Greenberg Traurig has deployed Thomson Reuters' next-generation agentic AI platform, CoCounsel Legal, across its global footprint following a four-year collaborative partnership. The rollout gives the firm's 3,200 attorneys access to AI tools for planning, research, and drafting briefs grounded in Westlaw and Practical Law content.

Google has expanded its Gemini Enterprise AI platform to launch legal-specific tools, featuring specialized AI agents and integrations with platforms like Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis, and Harvey. Major law firms including Weil Gotshal, Cleary Gottlieb, Freshfields, and Williams & Connolly are collaborating with Google on the project.

Legal tech venture funding remains near record highs, with startups raising over $7 billion over the past two years, mostly focused on AI. Major AI players Legora and Harvey are driving heavy market consolidation, making five and three acquisitions in 2026 respectively.

In Schulte v. LinkedIn, a magistrate judge held that using generative AI to assess responsiveness in discovery is analyzed under standard ESI and TAR frameworks rather than requiring separate protocols or disclosure rules. The court rejected challenges to search-term pre-culling and refused to compel detailed 'discovery on discovery' metrics without evidence of a specific production deficiency.

LexisNexis showcased Protégé integration in Lexis+, while Thomson Reuters introduced its next-generation CoCounsel Legal platform and new 'Thomson' AI offering. Both vendors are deploying agentic AI designed to autonomously execute multi-step legal workflows, with Thomson Reuters claiming CoCounsel is engineered to operate at the proficiency level of a senior associate.

Harvey has introduced a new Memory feature in Early Access, allowing legal professionals to set standing instructions for drafting styles, formatting, and jurisdiction preferences across its platform. The feature applies saved preferences automatically across Harvey's web app, Outlook, and Word integrations while giving users control to review, edit, or delete stored memories.

The University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law launched the Delta Institute for AI and the Law (DIAL) to focus on AI literacy, policy guidance, and practical legal education. Led by former DOJ trial attorney Debra Ireland, the institute is developing an AI lab for students and practitioners alongside an AI and Internet Law Legal Certificate Program.

Barnes & Thornburg is taking a practical, matter-driven approach to AI integration rather than issuing firmwide mandates. The strategy relies on legal ops teams collaborating directly with enthusiastic lawyers and clients, including recent work using AI to review thousands of contracts for private investment firm Atar Capital.

Venture funding in legal tech remains strong at over $2.2 billion this year, following a record $4.6 billion invested in 2024, according to Crunchbase data. Major AI platforms like Harvey and Legora continue to drive massive valuations, while acquisitions and early-stage seed activity remain robust.

Music publisher Round Hill has filed lawsuits against AI music generator Suno and AI developer Anthropic, alleging the companies illegally scraped and trained their models on copyrighted works. The suits add to the growing wave of copyright litigation brought by rights holders against generative AI developers.

The Global AI Regulation Tracker has launched a new tabular review feature, enabling legal professionals to compare AI regulations side-by-side across up to 195 countries and all 50 U.S. states. The tool generates customizable comparison tables with hyperlinked in-line sources that can be exported to Word or PDF.

An Ohio appeals panel questioned county prosecutors over a police affidavit that failed to disclose the use of facial recognition technology to identify a homicide suspect. A trial judge previously struck down evidence from the search, raising questions about AI reliability, disclosure duties, and probable cause in criminal matters.