AI-Native Law Firm Directory Launches

Matt Pollins, the co-founder of Lupl and also previously a partner at CMS, has launched a directory of AI-native law firms, which keeps tabs on every new NewMod, or ‘AI-first law firm’, that comes to market.

At present there are 27 NewMods in the directory, but given that they only really started to appear in 2025, we can expect many more to come – in fact, AL met a new one at the Paris breakfast for Legal Innovators Europe last week that is about to launch, so it will be 28 very soon! And many more are sure to arrive around the world.

The directory is searchable and includes ‘firms’ across various markets and use cases. So it includes Crosby – which handles NDAs and MSAs, and is based in the US, as well as Soxton, which is in the US also and handles contract needs for startups; and there is also Garfield, the UK NewMod that helps with small claims. And there are many more.

AL would strongly recommend checking this out, just to understand what is happening now in the legal market. The NewMods are not going away. They will only get stronger and grow further. They will also receive more funding, and as time passes the clients will become more aware of them. And as Pollins notes below, they are perhaps a model for ‘traditional’ law firms to consider adding to their offering as well.

In fact, AL would go further and say that the long-term outlook for the legal market is this: law firms will become like NewMods, and NewMods will become like law firms. At some point a long way down the line, many of them will probably become hard to differentiate between, perhaps in a decade from now.

After all, NewMods only exist because the traditional pyramids are not keeping up with technological realities and how those new realities have changed the game. Nearly all law firms today are still playing the old game. Hence NewMods have arrived. (I.e. having an AI platform in your tech stack and really using an AI platform to its maximum possible potential are not the same thing at all.)

As noted, this evolutionary branching is happening only because of the ‘trad’ models’ apparent ‘feet of clay’. They’re going to have to change, or have a growing piece of their market share absorbed. (Note: see today’s AL analysis of autopilots for some additional analysis on this point.)

Is it all plain-sailing for them? No. There are challenges that they need to grapple with as well. If you provide a contract for $500, then you have a new problem: you have to be really, really efficient to make a profit on that – if you involve a skilled lawyer to make sure it’s correct, and also allow the customer to send it back with changes.

I.e. while law firms have the challenge of meshing the need to sell time with AI’s ability to accelerate work production, the NewMods have a very different problem: they need to offer a fixed fee that is low enough to win customers, but also will cover the costs of having a real lawyer involved. And good lawyers never seem to become less expensive.

The law firms, for now, can rely on the fact that the hourly model gives them the chance to keep working on a matter for as long as the client can pay them.

Meanwhile, the NewMods cannot take too long, or use too much human input, as that will kill their profits.

It’s going to be fascinating to see how things evolve. Although, AL would suggest that in the long-term the NewMods have the technology play moving in their favour.

And as to why Pollins is doing this, he told AL:

‘I created this initially as a weekend project for my blog because I’ve been struggling to keep up with all the press announcements about AI law firms and wanted to have them all in one place.

Right now I am featuring the new entrants, but would love to feature some of the AI-native business units of larger law firms.

In my day job at Lupl, I work with law firms every day which are taking their first steps from adding AI to existing processes to redesigning the entire process around AI and that is really exciting.

There’s rightly a lot of debate about what is an AI law firm. It’s a bit like the .com days where adding an .ai adds to your multiple, but there are also real examples of business model innovation out there. I added a definition page and would welcome feedback because this is far from settled!

I’ve focused on legal service providers in the broadest sense and definitions differ across jurisdictions – some are law firms, others are ALSPs or licensed conveyancing businesses. My main test is whether they are regulated entities rather than just SaaS or Uber for Lawyer services.

This is very much an open platform and I would welcome feedback and collaborators.

I suspect at some point the definition discussion goes away because every law firm is or positions as being ‘AI-native’…or maybe it becomes the start of a new Chambers and Legal 500 category!’

Great work Matt!

You can see the directory here.

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A Legal Tech Conference For All of Europe

Legal Innovators Europe – Paris – June 24 and 25.

There will be more news about the conference and key speakers as we get closer to June.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Richard Tromans, Founder, Artificial Lawyer and Legal Innovators conference Chair.

Note: the conferences are organised by Cosmonauts – please contact them with any queries. 

If you would like to be a speaker at Legal Innovators Europe, especially if you are at a law firm or inhouse legal team in Europe – whether based in France, Belgium, Spain or Germany, or beyond…..then please contact Phoebe at Cosmonauts:  phoebe@cosmonauts.biz

Note: if you are a legal tech company, please contact Robins: robins@cosmonauts.biz or Anjana anjana@cosmonauts.biz

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And if you’re in the US and looking for the next major event to join after Legal Week, then see you in California this June!

Legal Innovators California, the landmark West Coast legal tech event, will take place on June 10 and 11, in the heart of the Bay Area, the home to many of the world’s leading AI businesses – and plenty of legal tech pioneers as well! More information and tickets here.