In a surprise move, Robin AI, which works with the likes of GE, Pfizer and PwC on genAI contract review, is doubling down on servicing the world of small-to-medium size law firms via a tech deal with Dye & Durham, the publicly-listed legal practice management group.
GenAI-focused Robin AI, which also maintains a team of human reviewers, has for some time kept a number of smaller law firm customers on its books. In fact, in October, James Clough, CTO, told this site: ‘Smaller law firms…have to scrap for their work. So, using tech is a differentiator, while they also tend to do more fixed rates work [which efficiency tools support].’
The company said that Robin AI’s due diligence and contract drafting and editing capabilities will now be offered to around 60,000 lawyers supported by Dye & Durham globally – in effect a huge expansion of its efforts to sell to Small Law.
The offering from Robin AI will allow smaller law firms to:
- ‘Review lengthy, in-depth contracts in seconds — compared to the hours it takes to manually review contracts — suggesting changes to language, and identifying alternate texts from a vast, proprietary database.
- And, have access to an extensive library of customisable lawyer-developed, in-demand contracts (like NDAs, Retainer Agreements, Employer Agreements and more)’
Robin AI’s CEO, Richard Robinson, commented: ‘Legal AI makes every lawyer more efficient. We’re busting our guts to level the playing field between small law and Big Law. [This] gives firms the agility and speed to compete for bigger clients, and top talent.’
Matthew Proud, CEO of Dye & Durham, which has operations in Canada, UK, Ireland, South Africa, and Australia, added: ‘Robin AI is a pioneer in the legal AI sector, and we are thrilled to partner with them to take their cutting-edge technology to market for Dye & Durham customers. Richard is a visionary who has built an extraordinary company and offering that will disrupt and change the legal market.’
Analysis: Small Law + Inhouse Similarities
Now, this may all seem quite unusual from a market fit perspective. How can you focus on the inhouse legal needs of giants such as GE and then also service small law firm needs? Isn’t that pulling in two different directions?
On face value, yes – it does look like a company doing two very different things. But, if you look more closely the differences are not as great as they appear.
Small Law and inhouse have some things in common. Inhouse legal teams clearly don’t want to take up more time than needed or run up unnecessary internal costs in the work they do; plus there is no gain for the business in throwing large numbers of inhouse lawyers at a task. Likewise, small law firms don’t have a lot of resources and need to get work done rapidly so as not to increase their operating costs for matters that may not deliver a large profit margin. I.e. both operate under tight cost constraints.
Also, small law firms often work on fixed fees, so there is a very good reason to use as much tech as possible in that work, as the sooner a matter is completed the better from an economic perspective. The lawyers in the firm can then focus on taking on new matters – and also applying tech to these to increase delivery speed, which in turn drives up revenue and profits.
Now, inhouse teams clearly aren’t billing anyone, but as noted above, the need to just get the work done really is a primary concern. And not all legal teams have hundreds of staff. Some may not be that different to a small or medium scale law firm in total numbers.
One other point is complexity. While a large commercial law firm may be working on plenty of esoteric legal matters, many small firms and inhouse teams are dealing with day-to-day contracting needs on a near continuous basis. Although a large company may have a complex playbook, they may be handling the same type of contracts at a high volume and high frequency. Small firms will have less volume, but the frequency of recurring contract needs are there also.
So, in an unexpected way, Small Law and inhouse have a lot in common. And if genAI can help here, then all the better.
Plus, on a more pragmatic level, the more users Robin AI has, the more revenue they make. Plus, when it comes to clients: there are a lot of small law firms across the world. However, one of the challenges is reaching them and the cost of sales in getting them to sign up for what may be relatively modest tech deals. In which case, the partnership with Dye & Durham, which already has thousands of customers on its books, makes total sense.