Legal tech startup Leya and FromCounsel, the legal information provider, are combining their capabilities to provide firms with a genAI-driven knowledge platform. The partnership will also see a closed pilot with 12 of the leading UK and US law firms testing the offering.
FromCounsel, which one could see as similar to Thomson Reuters’ Practical Law, already works with doc automation pioneer Clarilis, and provides in-depth legal information around corporate law and employment, such as precedents that come with detailed drafting notes. The company’s content is written and maintained by barristers from leading Chambers and senior knowledge lawyers from top City firms.
While Leya is an ‘AI-powered workspace’ that can ‘automate your repetitive tasks and access public sources and your own data’. Last week they announced a major POC with international law firm Bird & Bird.
This partnership therefore makes a lot of sense. FromCounsel has the authoritative legal content, Leya has the genAI capabilities and workflows to tap this knowledge and allow law firms to quickly gather the information they need using a natural language Q&A approach. In short, a perfect marriage of data and technology.
Leya and FromCounsel added that they anticipate completing the pilot during September with a commercial launch of their partnership planned for October 2024.
Andrew Thornton KC, founder of FromCounsel, said: ‘We believe that only a combination of genAI with the very best data sources will deliver a viable solution in the legal market, and our discussions over the last few months with our customers have confirmed that belief.
‘We are delighted to partner with Leya. We have been impressed with their technology and their willingness to adapt their approach to accord with our views on how best to deliver the precision and reliability demanded by our customers. We will be working hard over the next few months to fine-tune our offering in light of feedback from our pilot partner firms and are excited at the prospect of bringing a commercial product to market in the Autumn.’
While, Max Junestrand, CEO of Leya, commented: ‘At Leya we are obsessed with building the future of legal work. Our partnership with FromCounsel is a confident step in that direction, allowing us to combine our cutting-edge AI with their unparalleled legal expertise. We have spent considerable time understanding the unique challenges faced by UK legal professionals, particularly around the accuracy and reliability of generative AI. By integrating FromCounsel’s content with our AI capabilities, we address these concerns head-on.’
At present, FromCounsel is focused on the UK and has around 50 staff based in London. Meanwhile, Leya was founded in 2023 by CEO Junestrand, plus Sigge Labor and August Erséus. The company is working with more than 100 firms and has its headquarters in Stockholm. Earlier this year, Leya closed a $10.5m funding round led by Benchmark, with participation from Hummingbird, SV Angel, and Y Combinator.
Is this a big deal?
In short, yes. Companies such as Thomson Reuters, for example, are seeking to leverage their own curated libraries of legal content via genAI to provide added insights and improved time to value for lawyers. But, there are not that many organisations that have large-scale, high quality legal content libraries that law firms will turn to, and thus can be solid ground to apply genAI tools to for knowledge needs.
So, the fact that FromCounsel, which services ‘90% of the leading UK and US law firms practicing corporate law in the UK’, is teaming up with Leya is a big move. I.e. in a sector where so few players have quality content to sell to lawyers, whoever can super-charge that treasure trove with reliable genAI tools could make a significant impact.
Looking forward to hearing how the pilot goes.