It’s Legal Innovators UK today and tomorrow, so here are some reference notes. As Conference Chair I’ll be referring to this chart in my comments for sure, and you may find it useful as well, as you’re digesting everyone’s thoughts on where we are and where we are heading.
What this small snapshot of recent legal AI developments shows is just how much has happened since late 2022 – and especially this year. And clearly this is just a slice through the much broader legal innovation ecosystem.
As you can see, seismic moments such as Thomson Reuters buying Casetext – one of the first really major strategic legal genAI moves, and which rocked the legal tech world at the time – now feels like a distant memory. So much has happened since then, it feels like ancient history. But, it was only three years ago.
Scroll forward to this year and the scale of the moves is truly unprecedented. We have not just one tech giant entering the legal vertical at scale, but four: OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and most recently Microsoft. It’s even more if you count Palantir and Perplexity.
Also this year, Thomson Reuters unveiled its own LLM, Thomson, and an AmLaw 100 firm – Kirkland & Ellis – announced it would build its own AI system. Meanwhile, Harvey hit over $15 billion in valuation, and Legora – which only raised about $10m in May 2024 – has now accumulated over $1.4 billion in total investment, all within two and a half years.
Plus, we have seen a surge of AI native law firms, which went from a small handful in 2025, to several dozen this year, with many more to come. (Oh, and Weil Gotshal collapsed….although for once AI had nothing to do with that.)
These are incredible times that we are all part of right now, I’m sure you’ll agree! And those are just a few of the headlines – there is so much more going on, and so much more that has led to this point. So many other legal tech companies creating new features and growing rapidly. So many innovation and legal ops teams driving things forward. So many lawyers just really using AI tools!
And there is much more to come for sure from the frontier model makers – they seem determined to move as fast as possible, despite what they sometimes say out loud. Oh, and did anyone say ‘agentic’….? Of course, we are far from living in a truly agentic legal world….but, the groundwork is taking place, as we speak. And then how about the ‘vibe coding’ movement…? Yep. So much going on.
And, the most incredible thing of all is that we have really only just got started. From Artificial Lawyer launching in 2016, to ChatGPT arriving in November 2022, to now Legal Innovators UK in 2026, here we all are, and it all seems like time has passed in the blink of an eye. Where will be in 12 months? It’s hard to even guess. But plenty will happen, that’s for sure!
So, hope that got you thinking, and look forward to seeing you all at Legal Innovators UK today, or also at Legal Innovators New York on Nov 17 and 18. More details below.
Legal Innovators Conference Chair and Artificial Lawyer Founder, Richard Tromans
Legal Innovators New York Conference – Nov 17 + 18
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