Legal Tech Trends Newsletter: #49
Claude Mania, GenAI Platform Wins, Three YC LegalTech Investments, Walkers Strategic Partnership, and much more
Happy Friday, and welcome to the 49th edition of Legal Tech Trends!š
Itās been a little while since the last edition, as Iāve been deep in delivery mode. The second half of 2025 was intense: running close to 100 AI workshops across all clients in the last six months. This year isnāt slowing down - Iāll pass 25 in February alone.
Iāll be at the Harvey Forum in London on 23rd February. If you are too, letās chat! šµ
Claude Cowork Legal Plugin Mania
The market has been pretty frantic over Anthropicās announcement of the Claude Cowork legal plug-in, with tech stocks, particularly those in legal, taking a hit!
I havenāt had this many inbound questions about a single release since Harvey announced its partnership with A&O in 2023!
In short: Cowork is a polished interface that makes Claude Code accessible to a broader, non-technical audience. The legal plug-in signals an interesting direction of travel, but it feels early. As a document review solution, it wouldnāt make my RFP longlist today, based on the pilots and vendor assessments I have run in this category. (See Axiom podcast and whitepaper below for more info).
If Anthropic meaningfully strengthens citations, native Word integration and enterprise-grade security controls, the picture changes quickly. Given their release velocity, I would not rule that out! Certainly a space to watch carefully.
AI
š Harveyās Momentum Continues
Harvey continues to rack up wins. Hereās a quick round-up of the latest highlights:
Eversheds Sutherland: Starting with 350 lawyers. Full rollout starts in May. LINK
HSBC: A growing share of Harvey customers are now in-house. LINK
CMS: A long-term customer, now extending access to over 7,000 lawyers, representing Harveyās biggest implementation within a law firm to date. LINK
Harneys: Global rollout after an evaluation process with CoCounsel and Legora. LINK
Meanwhile, Legora announced a win with K&L Gates, with a global rollout to 1,000 lawyers. LINK
Both Legora and Harvey are reportedly preparing new funding rounds, with potential valuations of $4bn and $11bn, respectively. LINK
š» Crosby Launches āClient Consoleā for Collaborative Workflows
Hybrid AI law firm Crosby launched Client Console in beta. The console allows in-house clients to accept or reject legal edits, manage contract workflows, and collaborate seamlessly ā all from a unified interface. LINK
Sidenote: Client portals are a hot topic, with both Legora and Harvey announcing significant new releases in this area. Itās an interesting space and Iām keen to see how they handle the complexities of permissioning, sharing work in progress, and moving beyond what HighQ popularised several years ago.
š¤ Saga Partners with Deloitte Spinout Moonlit for Source-Based Legal AI
European legal AI startup Saga has partnered with Moonlit, a Deloitte spinout, to integrate legal research data across 28 jurisdictions. The collaboration connects Sagaās lawyer-centric AI workflows with Moonlitās database of over 10 million official legal documents, including legislation, case law, and regulatory decisions. LINK
š Ask iManage: AI-Powered Search Across Firm Knowledge
iManage launched an expanded version of Ask iManage, enabling natural-language queries across the entire document management platform with cited answers. Previously, it was limited to analysing a narrower subset of documents. LINK
š Thomson Reuters Expands CoCounsel Legal to the UK
After launching CoCounsel Legal in the US, Thomson Reuters has now expanded it to the UK, introducing Deep Research capabilities integrated with Westlaw and Practical Law. The agentic solution combines legal research, workflow automation, intelligent document search, and AI-powered legal assistance within one platform. It integrates with Microsoft 365, document management systems and HighQ. LINK
š Vibecode-Law Launches ā An Open Platform for DIY AI Tools
If youāre interested in vibecoding, then youāll enjoy Vibecode.law, the project launched by Chris Bridges, Matt Pollins and Alex Baker. The open platform enables users to share and showcase their vibecoding projects, providing a simple and smart central hub to surface what the community is actually building.
Sidenote: I particularly liked Chrisās recent LinkedIn post on the strengths, limitations and current realities of vibecoding. Hugely impressive, but far from production ready, which aligns with my current take. LINK
Acquisitions
AI contract review Word add-ins are having a moment!
With LawVu acquiring ClauseBase (LINK) and Filevine acquiring Pincites (LINK), this follows recent moves such as Agiloft's acquisition of Screens and Icertis's acquisition of Dioptra.
Special shout-out to Senne and Maarten at ClauseBase, whose nuanced perspectives on AI-driven contract review and the technical intricacies of Microsoft Word have long set the standard for hype-free and thoughtful commentary in this space. š
(Of course, describing these tools as a simple Word add-in barely scratches the surface. ClauseBase, for instance, built a powerful and widely adopted document automation platform over many years.)
Pre-execution document review remains one of the strongest use cases for AI, with several compelling vendors still in the space, including DraftPilot, Ivo, Spellbook, SimpleDocs and many many others!
Raises
š° Lawhive Raises $60M Series B to Expand Across the US
UK-based AI legal services firm Lawhive raised $60 million in a Series B round to accelerate its US expansion, after achieving $35 million in annual revenue. Lawhive targets the US consumer legal market, currently operating in 35 states and expanding nationwide. LINK
šµ Sandstone Raises $10M Seed Led by Sequoia for In-House AI Agents
Brooklyn-based legal AI startup Sandstone raised $10 million in seed funding led by Sequoia Capital, backed by over 20 general counsels, to build AI-powered workflows for in-house legal departments. LINK
š¤ Orbital Raises $60M Series B for Real Estate Law Automation
London-based Orbital raised $60 million to support continued growth in the US and UK and to expand adoption across the real estate transaction ecosystem. Their products are used by hundreds of law firms across AM Law 100, Magic Circle, as well as in-house legal teams, real estate developers, title companies, and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). LINK
šø Ivo Raises $55M Series B for In-House Contract Work
Contract intelligence startup Ivo raised $55 million in Series B at a $355 million valuation, with plans to triple its team and open London and New York offices. Clients include Uber, Shopify, IBM, Reddit and Canva. LINK
š¶ Summize Raises $50M to Accelerate AI Contract Intelligence
Summize helps in-house legal teams manage contracts within popular software applications, including Microsoft Word, Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Salesforce, and HubSpot. LINK
š° Solve Intelligence Raises $40M Series B for AI Patent Platform
This $40 million round brings their total funding to $55 million. More than 400 IP teams across six continents use the product. Around 60% of customers are law firms, including DLA Piper and Perkins Coie, and 40% are corporate IP departments such as those at Siemens and Avery Dennison. LINK
šµ Checkbox Raises $23M Series A to Power the AI Legal Front Door
This round values Checkbox at $100 million and will help to scale its no-code AI platform for in-house legal teams. The platform centralises legal requests and automates routine work. LINK
šø Ankar Bags $20M for AI-Driven Patent Platform
Palantir-alumni-founded patent automation startup Ankar raised $20 million in Series A funding, bringing total funding to $24 million. The platform is expanding its AI-powered patent drafting and analysis capabilities across Europe and the US. LINK
š° Tradespace Raises $15M Series A to Fix the Economics of IP Law
IP management platform Tradespace raised $15 million to expand its AI-native patent lifecycle automation system. The company manages over 440,000 patents for 80+ organisations, including Fortune 500 companies. LINK
š¶ Chamelio Raises $10M Seed Round for Legal Intelligence Platform
Chamelio secured $10 million to accelerate its legal intelligence platform for in-house teams. The company serves approx 100 clients, including Wiz and Fiverr. LINK
šø SpotDraft Secures $8M for On-Device AI
SpotDraft raised $8 million in a Series B extension following its $56 million raise in February last year, valuing the company at $380 million. The company is driving enterprise adoption of secure, on-device AI for legal workflows. LINK
š° Antidote Raises $5M Seed for Billing Compliance
London-based AI billing compliance startup Antidote raised $5 million in seed funding to automate law firm billing compliance and accelerate US expansion, bringing total funding to $7 million. LINK
šµ Curvestone AI Bags Ā£4M Seed for Workflow Automation LINK
š¶ Awesome Raises ā¬1.2M for Collaborative Compliance AI Platform LINK
Other
š¢ Walkers Agrees Strategic Partnership with Vitruvian Partners
Offshore law firm Walkers has partnered with London-based PE firm Vitruvian Partners to co-invest in and expand its corporate services business (Walkers Professional Services). The investment will support technology rollout, broaden service offerings, and expand into new markets ā reflecting the growing trend of law firms exploring PE capital to scale operations. LINK
š Y Combinator Winter 2026 Batch Includes 3 Legal Tech Startups
YCās Winter 2026 batch includes three legal tech companies: LINK
General Legal (commercial contracting for founders)
Arcline (startup legal work using AI for 80% of contract work)
LegalOS (immigration law with 48-hour visa applications).
Podcasts
āØFrom Pilot to Production: How Axiomās Clients Cracked the Legal AI Adoption Code
I joined Axiom CTO CJ Saretto and Director of AI Chris Frickland, alongside Legoraās Head of Legal Engineering Alex Fortescue-Webb, for a great conversation on what it takes to successfully deliver GenAI pilots, covering best practices in vendor assessments and lessons from several AI programmes Iāve run with Axiom. Iām biased because I feature in this one, but itās genuinely well worth a listen! LINK
Side note: If youāre interested in the data from one of the Axiom pilots, you can find more details here:
As many law firms wrestle with AI-driven pricing pressure, Axiom stands out for taking concrete action early through its Tech+Talent model, directly passing AI-enabled savings on to clients. One year after launch, it remains one of the clearest public examples Iāve seen of AI-driven cost savings being passed on to clients.
šļø Should law firms encourage vibecoding?
In this episode, Bird & Birdās HĆ©lder Santos shares a candid and practical perspective on vibecoding, exploring where it creates value and how itās applied within Bird & Bird. Itās a balanced take on the realities of AI-enabled development in law firms today. LINK (Check out their Green Claims Scanner demo here: LINK)
Adjacent Interests
š¤ KPMG pressed its auditor to pass on AI cost savings LINK
š¬ The Normalisation of Deviance in AI: LINK
ā ļøThe lethal trifecta for AI agents: private data, untrusted content, and external communication: LINK
Sidenote: Iām incredibly excited about GenAI, but at times it appears infosec best practice is being forgotten. I suspect weāll see some major security incidents linked to both AI agents and vibecoding hit the headlines this year.
Thatās a wrap! Enjoyed this edition? Forward it to a colleague or join the conversation on LinkedIn.
Have a great Friday!
About me
Iām the founder of TITANS, a LegalTech and AI consultancy for leading law firms and new law companies. We help some of the largest legal service providers shape their AI strategies, expedite vendor evaluation, and accelerate user adoption.Legal Tech Trends is my fun outlet to share my hype-free positive take on LegalTech and AI market developments, informed by my 10+ years technology consulting with leading corporate clients and legal service providers.
Connect with me on LinkedIn for more LegalTech insights Here š