Legal AI Co.s Seal, Kira + Leverton Show Buoyant Growth

In a series of moves, three of the leading legal AI companies from the US, Canada and Germany have continued to grow their businesses, providing further evidence of just how far legal AI tech is succeeding on a global scale.

Seal Software

US-based Seal has two key announcements. First of all the company has announced a new iteration of its suite of legal AI tools, labelled Version 5.3.

The new iteration builds on Seal’s machine learning engine and analytics framework introduced in Seal V 4.0 with a new process called Active Learning, which allows end users to create new machine learning models without the need for data scientists, consultants or technical staff.

The latest version also enhances the Analyze This Now feature with a new Clause Library that can be used to swap out unapproved language with approved text. Moreover, the new version introduces out-of-the-box German-language extraction models for critical contract components, and includes a new centralised configuration capability.

‘The latest version of the Seal platform puts even more power into the hands of business users, making it possible to do more and achieve more without the need for legal or IT resources,’ said Kevin Gidney, CTO of Seal.

Seal’s second announcement covers the fact that it has been identified as ‘a key provider in the emerging Intelligent Content Analytics (ICA) market’, according to Aragon Research, a technology-focused research and advisory firm based in Silicon Valley.

The report is among the first evaluations of how the current class of Intelligent Content Analytics Platforms (ICAPs) will enable enterprises to leverage their business critical content.

Aragon also forecasts that this AI-driven market will grow to more than $10 billion by 2025, with the combined adjacent markets, business intelligence, enterprise content management, sales engagement and cloud office suites, accounting for $67 billion by 2025.

‘We are leaving the Enterprise Content Management era, and Intelligent Content Analytics is the new way forward,’ said Jim Lundy, founder and CEO at Aragon Research. ‘Fortune 1000 companies are already using platforms such as Seal Software to uncover all types of unstructured content, not only contracts, and we believe that this trend will transform the enterprise in the next few years as companies increasingly look to Intelligent Content Analytics Platforms as part of their overall digital business strategy.’

Kira Systems

As noted earlier this week, Kira Systems has added LPO, Cenza, to its growing group of members of its certification and training programme, which includes other big names such as Deloitte, Axiom and Elevate.

The Canadian legal AI company, with its focus on doc review, has also scooped another important client win in the shape of US Top 60 law firm Baker Donelson.

Baker Donelson will implement Kira to conduct due diligence for transactions as well as for contract review and analysis. The use of Kira is seen by the firm as an integral part of its broader tech innovation and process improvement strategy.

William S. Painter, Baker Donelson’s chief innovation officer, said: ‘Kira brings a whole new model of delivering service to our clients. It exemplifies our firm’s philosophy of using innovative technologies combined with our experience and industry-leading processes and systems for more efficient and cost-effective delivery of exceptional legal services.’

While Meredith L. Williams, chief knowledge management officer of Baker Donelson, added: ‘In pilot projects with Kira we were able to significantly reduce the amount of time that our attorneys spent on due diligence and saw extremely high accuracy rates. These are efficiencies that directly benefit our clients and allow our attorneys to focus on issues they most need to address.’

The implementation of Kira is being led by Baker Donelson’s Innovation Group, which was formed to streamline processes and ‘to empower the firm’s lawyers and professional support staff’.

 Leverton

And finally, German legal AI and proptech company Leverton has hired Tom Braegelmann as General Counsel and Legal Tech Evangelist from global law firm, DLA Piper.

He will lead the company’s legal department and support the management team in building the AI platform.

The company said: ‘Tom’s broad and deep legal experience as an international business lawyer with a dual-qualification in Germany and the US, as well as his nimble thought-leadership concerning legal tech, legal innovation and the digitisation of the legal profession, will be an excellent addition to our fast expanding operations world-wide.’

Braegelmann added: ‘This is a great time to be a modern lawyer. To work with Leverton as one of the worldwide leading companies that is making great innovative steps towards a major platform for structured data and document management, is a unique chance to add to the swift evolution of legal tech and prop tech, in particular and in general. I am looking forward to shaping and supporting this development from the legal side.’

So, there you go. More legal AI company news than you can shake a stick at. And proof positive that what started as a small trickle of activity a couple of years ago has now become a full-blown sector that just by itself can generate a torrent of growth news, tech innovation, hires and client wins. Legal AI is in a very buoyant state indeed.