Claude Fable, Steno, Billables AI, Spellbook, Legora

Because AL is in SF this week here’s a collection of news all in one go. First up, Claude Fable and how Mark Pike, who is leading Claude for Legal, sees it (and mentions both Crosby and Harvey).

In a social media post he said: ‘Claude Fable 5 is out now, and the legal results speak for themselves. Crosby scored its redlines against their current model. Per Aveek D. Member of Technical Staff at Crosby: ‘Claude Fable 5 feels materially different. In blind review, our lawyers found its redlines matched or beat our current model every time.’

‘On Harvey’s open-source Legal Agent Benchmark — 1,200+ realistic tasks across 24 practice areas, graded against expert rubrics where missing a single criterion means failing the task — Fable 5 now sits at the top of the leader board. A few weeks ago Opus 4.8 became the first model to crack 10% on that unforgiving all-pass standard. Fable 5 just pushed it to 13.3%.’

And if you think 13% is weak, consider that this is the score for achieving lawyer-level success at entire, complex legal workflows. In short, it’s a long way off replacing lawyers….but, the improvement is notable. If the underlying frontier model performance for legal agents on complex tasks goes up by 3% every few months, and perhaps starts to go up in leaps and bounds in a couple of years, then we’d be looking at something truly disruptive to the legal market.

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Steno Promotes Prabhdeep Singh To CEO

Steno, a pioneer in tech-enabled court reporting and litigation support services, has appointed Prabhdeep Singh as Chief Executive Officer. He previously served as Steno’s Chief Operating Officer and succeeds Co-Founder Greg Hong, who will continue to support the company via the Board of Directors.

Steno recently raised a $49 million Series C funding round and will use the cash to drive development of its AI tools and expand its Big Law client base.

Singh commented: ‘I’m honoured to lead Steno at this pivotal moment as we scale into one of the largest legal tech platforms in the USA.

‘Steno’s hybrid position, operating as both a world-class services provider and a tech company, allows us to build AI capabilities that software-only companies simply cannot replicate. Our goal is to expand beyond simple automation, providing a unified platform where data-informed AI and expert litigation support work together to solve the complex challenges lawyers and law firms face daily.’

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Billables AI has raised $10.2 million in a Series A round led by Avenue Growth Partners. The new capital will be used to accelerate research and development, expand go-to-market efforts and deepen the company’s growing ecosystem of legal technology partnerships.

In 2024 the company raised $3.9m in Seed funding.

Billables AI said that it stands out from the many other time recording systems because it can ‘integrate directly with the tools attorneys already use, including Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Zoom, and Adobe and in addition to law firm practice management platforms, via secure API connections to capture rich data on how legal work actually gets done’.

Of course, AL is looking forward to the day that law firms stop measuring value by time…

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Spellbook has launched a $1m Legal Fellowship Fund. CEO Scott Stevenson told AL: ‘We’re supporting law students who want to work at the intersection of law, systems thinking and technology.

‘Fellows will receive $25,000 in funding, mentorship, full access to Spellbook and beta features, and the chance to build something that will fundamentally change how legal work gets done.’

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Legora and Wolters Kluwer are partnering to bring US statutory and regulatory law info into the legal AI platform.

Legora users can now have access to Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US’s continuously updated US statutes, regulations, executive orders, and federal legislation. It’s one of several legal data deals they have done.

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That’s all folks. AL is chairing the Legal Innovators California conference Wed and Thursday this week, so will do another Wrap on Friday, but may not post any more news until then except on social media.

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Legal Innovators California Conference is this week on June 10 and 11 in San Francsico. 

For the first time at the California conference, we are providing complimentary tickets, which includes all sessions, breaks, lunch, and the evening networking drinks reception in the heart of the Bay Area, which in turn is the bustling centre of the global AI industry – and which is now changing the legal tech world itself.

Legal Innovators California is also the largest and most pioneering legal tech event on the West Coast of the USA – but we only hold it once per year, each June. So, if you’d like to join us, then get your skates on and claim your ticket! There’s so much happening now in legal tech and AI, this is an incredible opportunity to be right at the center of the action, with those who are shaping the future of our industry!