Legal AI doc review company, LawGeex, has formed a small and very focused ALSP business to provide legal advice combined with its tech services to clients across America. It’s a major development for the Israel-based pioneer and it’s possible because of experimental reforms to Bar rules in Utah.
LawGeex has long had clients and staff in the US, including several lawyers based in Utah. When the US State of Utah created a regulatory sandbox to allow legal services businesses that are not wholly owned by lawyers to operate there, the legal tech company applied and was accepted.
Speaking to Artificial Lawyer, LawGeex VP of Marketing, Audelia Boker, said: ‘We got lucky as we had staff in Utah so we could apply for the sandbox. What we are going to do [in terms of offering legal services] is to identify issues in the contract playbooks of our clients and advise them on how they can improve them.’
‘In the past we were not practising the law, as we only worked with the clients’ playbooks. But, now we can help our customers end-to-end.’
Artificial Lawyer mentioned that this looked just like an ALSP – but one focused just on contract review, using tech, human reviewers, and now providing advice. Boker replied that this was a fair description.
She added that they have about 15 lawyers in Utah now and are hiring more, with several joining in the last few days.
Importantly, Boker noted that LawGeex can advise clients across the US under this system, for example they could help a company in New York on how to improve their playbooks.
Boker added that although they can now give legal advice in the US they won’t be branching out into offering multiple kinds of legal services. I.e. don’t expect them to start providing employment or M&A advice any time soon.
Now, we have seen plenty of ALSPs in the US – in fact America is the home to many of the most well-known of such companies, e.g. Elevate, UnitedLex, Factor and others. But, this is different. First, the ALSPs above do not provide regulated legal advice in the US, also they started as process businesses. LawGeex is both a tech company – along with human reviewers and subject matter experts – and also now is in effect ‘a law firm‘, albeit covering a very narrow legal area.
Overall this is a fascinating move and perhaps offers some interesting possibilities for other companies that can build a group of lawyers in Utah around a tech offering. So far, about 20 other businesses have also been granted access to the sandbox.
In an earlier statement, co-founder and CEO, Noory Bechor, said: ‘The legal industry is experiencing massive transformation led by the adoption of technology. The Utah Supreme Court’s decision to include LawGeex in the regulatory sandbox program is testimony to AI becoming mainstream. Our unique Managed-AI approach empowers us to drive an innovative service model as an affordable alternative to traditional legal services that will undoubtedly benefit clients.
‘We hope that by allowing AI technology and digital intelligence to propel legal practices into the 21st century, we will better meet the legal needs of the business world, but also create new jobs at the intersection of law and technology.’
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