UK-based legal AI due diligence company, Luminance, has signed a new deal with another European law firm, this time in the shape of Nordic-focused, Roschier, providing its fourth publicly named client since its launch last year.
The move comes after sealing a deal with another Nordic law firm, BA-HR, one of Norway’s top law firms, earlier this month. Luminance, which is backed by Invoke Capital, also bagged leading Dutch firm Houthoff Buruma as a long term client recently. Its foundation client remains UK corporate powerhouse, Slaughter and May, with whom Luminance retains a very close relationship.
Roschier has been piloting Luminance in an M&A project involving a team that spans the firm’s Helsinki and Stockholm offices. The Nordic firm conducts a large number of M&A transactions and expects Luminance to add significant value to its usual review processes, it said in a statement.
Tero Jormanainen, the Roschier partner who is overseeing the AI adoption project, said: ‘We see many benefits arising from the use of artificial intelligence in our business, one of them being efficiency in document reviews, for example in M&A transactions.’
He added: ‘It also increases the relevance of the lawyers’ work by reducing the quantity of administrative work. We see ourselves as a forerunner in many areas and introducing AI-based solutions is a natural step in developing our services. Going forward, the aim is of course to demonstrate direct benefits to our clients as well.’
Emily Foges, Luminance’s CEO, concluded: ‘We are excited to be working with another leading Nordic law firm, and look forward to assisting Roschier in rolling out Luminance to litigation and evidence due diligence projects in the very near future.’
The expansion into Europe is interesting as few other legal AI companies have made such significant inroads into Continental Europe, with many of the clients of contract/document AI analysis companies being based in the US, Canada or the UK. However, given the size of the European legal sector there is clearly a huge potential market and Luminance is making headway there.
Meanwhile UK rival, RAVN, has an office in Amsterdam, while Canada’s Kira works with Ireland’s McCann FitzGerald.