LegalTech’s “Open Source” Moment!

Venture Legal 29

With AI usage for legal approaching “near-universal” adoption, the sector continues to evolve at an astounding pace.

Directly on the heels of the debut of Anthropic’s “Claude for Legal,” which it debuted just shortly before filing for IPO this week, The Information reported last week on a “fresh assault” on LegalTech’s major players: “Some law firms now want to develop their own AI apps with frontier model companies like Anthropic or OpenAI rather than just purchase apps from smaller legal startups.”

The article cited the announcement by Kirkland & Ellis, the largest law firm by gross revenue last year, that it plans to spend $500 million to develop its own AI apps, as well as Freshfields collaboration with Anthropic to develop a legal AI tool for its 4,000 attorneys, in exchange for early access to the company’s models.

Amid these big moves towards in-house building by major firms, there was also big news on another front: open source is also gaining traction in LegalTech.

Read the full story

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