legislatures / government / legal

Beyond ChatGPT: Why In-House Counsel Need Purpose Built AI (Cecilia Ziniti, CEO – GC AI)

On 12/04/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, tools, trends, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Beyond ChatGPT: Why In-House Counsel Need Purpose Built AI (Cecilia Ziniti, CEO – GC AI) — from tlpodcast.com

This episode features a conversation with Cecilia Ziniti, Co-Founder and CEO of GC.AI. Cecilia traces her career from the early days of the internet to founding an AI-driven legal platform for in-house counsel.

Cecilia shares her journey, starting as a paralegal at Yahoo in the early 2000s, working on nascent legal issues related to the internet. She discusses her time at Morrison & Foerster and her role at Amazon, where she was an early member of the Alexa team, gaining deep insight into AI’s potential before the rise of modern large language models (LLMs).

The core discussion centers on the creation of GC AI, a legal AI tool specifically designed for in-house counsel. Cecilia explains why general LLMs like ChatGPT are insufficient for professional legal work—lacking proper citation, context, and security/privilege protections. She highlights the app’s features, including enhanced document analysis (RAG implementation), a Word Add-in, and workflow-based playbooks to deliver accurate, client-forward legal analysis. The episode also touches on the current state of legal tech, the growing trend of bringing legal work in-house, and the potential for AI to shift the dynamics of the billable hour.

Law Firm 2.0: A Trillion-Dollar Market Begins To Move — from abovethelaw.com by Ken Crutchfield
The test cases for Law Firm 2.0 are arriving faster than many expected.

A move to separate legal advice from other legal services that don’t require advice is a big shift that would ripple through established firms and also test regulatory boundaries.
…
The LegalTech Fund (TLTF) sees a $1 trillion opportunity to reinvent legal services through the convergence of technology, regulatory changes, and innovation. TLTF calls this movement Law Firm 2.0, and the fund believes a reinvention will pave the way for entirely new, tech-enabled models of legal service delivery.

From Paper to Platform: How LegalTech Is Revolutionizing the Practice of Law — from markets.financialcontent.com by AB Newswire

For decades, practicing law has been a business about paper — contracts, case files, court documents, and floor-to-ceiling piles of precedent. But as technology transforms all aspects of modern-day business, law firms and in-house legal teams are transforming along with it. The development of LegalTech has revolutionized what was previously a paper-driven, manpower-intensive profession into a data-driven digital web of collaboration and automation.

Conclusion: Building the Future of Law
The practice of law has always been about accuracy, precedent, and human beings. Technology doesn’t alter that — it magnifies it. The shift to the platform from paper is about liberating lawyers from back-office tasks so they can concentrate on strategy, advocacy, and creativity.

By coupling intelligent automation with moral obligation, today’s firms are positioning the legal profession for a more intelligent, responsive industry. LegalTech isn’t about automation, it’s about empowering attorneys to practice at the speed of today’s business.

What Legal Can Learn from Other Industries’ AI Transformations — from jdsupra.com

Artificial intelligence has already redefined how industries like finance, healthcare, and supply chain operate — transforming once-manual processes into predictive, data-driven engines of efficiency.

Yet the legal industry, while increasingly open to innovation, still lags behind its peers in adopting automation at scale. As corporate legal departments face mounting pressure to do more with less, they have an opportunity to learn from how other sectors successfully integrated AI into their operations.

The message is clear: AI transformation doesn’t just change workflows — it changes what’s possible.

7 Legal Tech Trends To Watch In 2026 — from lexology.com

Small Language Models Are Changing Legal Tech: What That Means for Lawyers and Law Firms — from community.nasscom.in

The legal profession is at a turning point. Artificial intelligence tools are moving from novelty to everyday utility, and small language models, or SLMs, are a major reason why. For law firms and in-house legal teams that are balancing client confidentiality, tight budgets, and the need to move faster, SLMs offer a practical, high impact way to bring legal AI into routine practice. This article explains what SLMs are, why they matter to lawyers, where they fit in legal workflows, and how to adopt them responsibly.

Legal AI startup draws new $50 million Blackstone investment, opens law firm — from reuters.com by Sara Merken

NEW YORK, Nov 20 (Reuters) – Asset manager Blackstone (BX.N), opens new tab has invested $50 million in Norm Ai, a legal and compliance technology startup that also said on Thursday that it is launching an independent law firm that will offer “AI-native legal services.”

Lawyers at the new New York-based firm, Norm Law LLP, will use Norm Ai’s artificial intelligence technology to do legal work for Blackstone and other financial services clients, said Norm Ai founder and CEO John Nay.

Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 531: What Law Students Should Know About New Legal Tech (w/Gabe Teninbaum) — from jdsupra.com

Today, Alison and Gabe Teninbaum — law professor and creator of SpacedRepetition.com — discuss how technology is rapidly transforming the legal profession, emphasizing the importance for law students and lawyers to develop technological competence and adapt to new tools and roles in the legal profession.

New York is the San Francisco of legal tech — from businessinsider.com by Melia Russell

Legal tech ?? NYC.
To win the market, startups say they need to be where the law firms and corporate legal chiefs are.
Legora and Harvey are expanding their footprints in New York, as Clio hunts for office space.

Legal Tech Startups Expand in New York to Access Law Firms — from indexbox.io

Several legal technology startups are expanding their physical presence in New York City, according to a report from Legal tech NYC. The companies state that to win market share, they need to be located where major law firms and corporate legal departments are based.

Linklaters unveils 20-strong ‘AI lawyer’ team — from legalcheek.com by Legal Cheek

Magic Circle giant Linklaters has launched a team of 20 ‘AI Lawyers’ (yes, that is their actual job title) as it ramps up its commitment to artificial intelligence across its global offices.

The new cohort is a mix of external tech specialists and Linklaters lawyers who have decided to boost their legal expertise with advanced AI know-how. They will be placed into practice groups around the world to help build prompts, workflows and other tech driven processes that the firm hopes will sharpen client delivery.

I went to a closed-door retreat for top lawyers. The message was clear: Don’t fear AI — use it. — from businessinsider.com by Melia Russell

AI is making its mark on law firms and corporate legal teams.
Clients expect measurable savings, and firms are spending real money to deliver them.
At TLTF Summit, Big Law leaders and legal-tech builders explored the future of the industry.

From Cost Center to Command Center: The Future of Litigation is Being Built In-House — from law.stanford.edu by Adam Rouse, Tamra Moore, Renee Meisel, Kassi Burns, & Olga Mack

Litigation isn’t going away, but who leads, drafts, and drives it is rapidly changing. Empirical research shows corporate legal departments have steadily expanded litigation management functions over the past decade. (Annual Litigation Trends Survey, Norton Rose Fulbright (2025)).

For decades, litigation lived squarely in the law firm domain. (Wald, Eli, Getting in and Out of the House: Career Trajectories of In-House Lawyers, Fordham Law Review, Vol. 88, No. 1765, 2020 (June 22, 2020)). Corporate legal departments played a responsive role: approving strategies, reviewing documents, and paying hourly rates. But through dozens of recent conversations with in-house legal leaders, legal operations professionals, and litigation specialists, a new reality is emerging. One in which in-house counsel increasingly owns the first draft, systematizes their litigation approach, and reshapes how outside counsel fits into the picture.

AI, analytics, exemplar libraries, playbooks, and modular document builders are not simply tools. They are catalysts for a structural shift. Litigation is becoming modular, data-informed, and orchestrated by in-house teams who increasingly want more than cost control. They want consistency, clarity, and leverage. This piece outlines five major trends from our qualitative research, predictions on their impact to the practice of law, and research questions that are worth considering to further understand these trends. A model is then introduced for understanding how litigation workflows and outside counsel relationships will evolve in the coming years.

Clio Completes Historic $1 Billion vLex Acquisition, Announces $500 Million Series G at $5 Billion Valuation, Plus Exclusive Interview with CEO and CFO

On 11/13/2025, in business, innovation, law schools, Legal operations, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, by Daniel Christian

Clio Completes Historic $1 Billion vLex Acquisition, Announces $500 Million Series G at $5 Billion Valuation, Plus Exclusive Interview with CEO and CFO — from lawnext.com

Legal technology company Clio has completed its $1 billion acquisition of vLex, marking the conclusion of the largest deal in legal tech history, and has simultaneously closed a $500 million Series G funding round, along with a $350 million debt facility, valuing the combined company at $5 billion, and clearing the way to move forward on creating an unprecedented unified platform that spans both the business and practice of law.

With the deal now closed, Clio becomes a company with $400 million in annual recurring revenue and a customer base of 400,000 legal professionals, it says.
…

“This is a defining moment for Clio and for the legal industry,” said Jack Newton, Clio’s founder and CEO. “We founded Clio to transform the legal experience for all, and this milestone brings that mission to a new horizon.”

The transaction brings vLex’s 350-plus employees – including experts in law, data and technology – into Clio’s organization, creating what Newton calls “the world’s most powerful legal intelligence platform, a platform that will define how legal work is done for generations to come.”

By combining practice management, research, drafting, and firm operations into connected AI-powered workflows, the platform aims to enable legal professionals to move from insight to action with greater speed and precision.

Breaking News: Law Firm’s AI Pilot Lets New Lawyers Step Away from Billable Hours [jdjournal.com]

On 11/11/2025, in adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, career development, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, law schools, learning ecosystem, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Breaking News: Law Firm’s AI Pilot Lets New Lawyers Step Away from Billable Hours — from jdjournal.com

In a groundbreaking move that may redefine how law firms integrate technology training into daily practice, Ropes & Gray LLP has introduced a new pilot program allowing its first-year associates to dedicate a significant portion of their work hours to artificial intelligence (AI) learning—without the pressure of billing those hours to clients.

The initiative, called “TrAIlblazers,” marks one of the first formal attempts by a major law firm to give attorneys credit toward their billable-hour requirements for time spent exploring and developing AI skills. The firm hopes the move will both prepare young lawyers for a rapidly evolving profession and signal a new era of flexibility in how law firms evaluate performance.

Two items for those who like to pulsecheck what’s up with journalism

On 11/07/2025, in communications, funding / grants, journalism, legislatures / government / legal, United States, universities, writing, by Daniel Christian

News deserts hit new high and 50 million have limited access to local news, study finds — from medill.northwestern.edu
Federal funding cuts to public broadcasting may accelerate local news crisis

EVANSTON, ILL. — The number of local news deserts in the U.S. jumped to record levels this year as newspaper closures continued unabated, and funding cuts to public radio could worsen the problem in coming months, according to the Medill State of Local News Report 2025 released today.

While the local news crisis deepened overall, Medill researchers found cause for optimism — more than 300 local news startups have launched over the past five years, 80% of which were digital-only outlets.

For the fourth consecutive year, the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications conducted a months-long, county-by-county survey of local news organizations to identify trends in the rapidly morphing local media landscape. Researchers looked at local newspapers, digital-only sites, ethnic media and public broadcasters.

How Local Newsrooms Are Rethinking Political Coverage — from adigaskell.org

For decades, election reporting in the U.S. has leaned heavily on the “horse race”—who’s up, who’s down, and who’s raising the most money. But new research from the University of Kansas suggests that this approach is starting to shift, thanks to a national training program aimed at helping journalists better engage with their communities.

The program, called Democracy SOS, encourages reporters to move beyond headline polls and campaign drama. Instead, it asks them to focus on the issues people care about and explain how those issues are being tackled. In other words: less spectacle, more substance.

Addendum on 11/13/25:

Why Losing Local Newspapers Costs More Than We Think — from adigaskell.org

So why can’t digital journalism fill the gap?
The researchers argue that online media isn’t a true replacement for local reporting. “If you’re in New York writing about San Francisco, you just don’t know the area,” they say. “You don’t have the context. You’re not there.”

Even local online reporters face pressure to chase clicks. “Every journalist now has a global audience,” they explain. “That means the stories that matter most—ones that require digging, patience, and a deep knowledge of the community—often get ignored.”

The takeaway: local newspapers may seem like an old-fashioned idea, but they play a key role in how communities function. And when they vanish, the costs go beyond the news.

The Other Regulatory Time Bomb — from onedtech.philhillaa.com by Phil Hill
Higher ed in the US is not prepared for what’s about to hit in April for new accessibility rules

Most higher-ed leaders have at least heard that new federal accessibility rules are coming in 2026 under Title II of the ADA, but it is apparent from conversations at the WCET and Educause annual conferences that very few understand what that actually means for digital learning and broad institutional risk. The rule isn’t some abstract compliance update: it requires every public institution to ensure that all web and media content meets WCAG 2.1 AA, including the use of audio descriptions for prerecorded video. Accessible PDF documents and video captions alone will no longer be enough. Yet on most campuses, the conversation has been understood only as a buzzword, delegated to accessibility coordinators and media specialists who lack the budget or authority to make systemic changes.

And no, relying on faculty to add audio descriptions en masse is not going to happen.

The result is a looming institutional risk that few presidents, CFOs, or CIOs have even quantified.

Six Transformative Technology Trends Impacting the Legal Profession — from americanbar.org

Summary

Law firm leaders should evaluate their legal technology and decide if they are truly helping legal work or causing a disconnect between human and AI contributions.
75% of firms now rely on cloud platforms for everything from document storage to client collaboration.
The rise of virtual law firms and remote work is reshaping the profession’s culture. Hybrid and remote-first models, supported by cloud and collaboration tools, are growing.

Are we truly innovating, or just rearranging the furniture? That’s the question every law firm leader should be asking as the legal technology landscape shifts beneath our feet. There are many different thoughts and opinions on how the legal technology landscape will evolve in the coming years, particularly regarding the pace of generative AI-driven changes and the magnitude of these changes.

To try to answer the question posed above, we looked at six recently published technology trends reports from influential entities in the legal technology arena: the American Bar Association, Clio, Wolters Kluwer, Lexis Nexis, Thomson Reuters, and NetDocuments.

When we compared these reports, we found them to be remarkably consistent. While the level of detail on some topics varied across the reports, they identified six trends that are reshaping the very core of legal practice. These trends are summarized in the following paragraphs.

Generative AI and AI-Assisted Drafting …
Cloud-Based Practice Management…
Cybersecurity and Data Privacy…
Flat Fee and Alternative Billing Models…
Legal Analytics and Data-Driven Decision Making…
Virtual Law Firms and Remote Work…

From DSC:
One of my sisters shared this piece with me. She is very concerned about our society’s use of technology — whether it relates to our youth’s use of social media or the relentless pressure to be first in all things AI. As she was a teacher (at the middle school level) for 37 years, I greatly appreciate her viewpoints. She keeps me grounded in some of the negatives of technology. It’s important for us to listen to each other.

The new legal intelligence — from jordanfurlong.substack.com by Jordan Furlong
We’ve built machines that can reason like lawyers. Artificial legal intelligence is becoming scalable, portable and accessible in ways lawyers are not. We need to think hard about the implications.

Much of the legal tech world is still talking about Clio CEO Jack Newton’s keynote at last week’s ClioCon, where he announced two major new features: the “Intelligent Legal Work Platform,” which combines legal research, drafting and workflow into a single legal workspace; and “Clio for Enterprise,” a suite of legal work offerings aimed at BigLaw.

Both these features build on Clio’s out-of-nowhere $1B acquisition of vLex (and its legally grounded LLM Vincent) back in June.

A new source of legal intelligence has entered the legal sector.
…
Legal intelligence, once confined uniquely to lawyers, is now available from machines. That’s going to transform the legal sector.

Where the real action is: enterprise AI’s quiet revolution in legal tech and beyond — from canadianlawyermag.com by Tim Wilbur
Harvey, Clio, and Cohere signal that organizational solutions will lead the next wave of change

The public conversation about artificial intelligence is dominated by the spectacular and the controversial: deepfake videos, AI-induced psychosis, and the privacy risks posed by consumer-facing chatbots like ChatGPT. But while these stories grab headlines, a quieter – and arguably more transformative – revolution is underway in enterprise software. In legal technology, in particular, AI is rapidly reshaping how law firms and legal departments operate and compete. This shift is just one example of how enterprise AI, not just consumer AI, is where real action is happening.

Both Harvey and Clio illustrate a crucial point: the future of legal tech is not about disruption for its own sake, but partnership and integration. Harvey’s collaborations with LexisNexis and others are about creating a cohesive experience for law firms, not rendering them obsolete. As Pereira put it, “We don’t see it so much as disruption. Law firms actually already do this… We see it as ‘how do we help you build infrastructure that supercharges this?’”
…
The rapid evolution in legal tech is just one example of a broader trend: the real action in AI is happening in enterprise software, not just in consumer-facing products. While ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini dominate the headlines, companies like Cohere are quietly transforming how organizations across industries leverage AI.

Also from canadianlawyermag.com, see:

Harvey’s $5 billion bet: Why the hottest company in legal tech is eyeing Canada
Co-founder Gabe Pereyra says their new Toronto office will have both tech expertise and customer support

The AI company’s plan to open an office in Toronto isn’t just about expanding territory – it’s a strategic push to tap into top technical talent and capture a market known for legal innovation.

Unseeable prompt injections in screenshots: more vulnerabilities in Comet and other AI browsers — from brave.com by Artem Chaikin and Shivan Kaul Sahib

Building on our previous disclosure of the Perplexity Comet vulnerability, we’ve continued our security research across the agentic browser landscape. What we’ve found confirms our initial concerns: indirect prompt injection is not an isolated issue, but a systemic challenge facing the entire category of AI-powered browsers. This post examines additional attack vectors we’ve identified and tested across different implementations.

As we’ve written before, AI-powered browsers that can take actions on your behalf are powerful yet extremely risky. If you’re signed into sensitive accounts like your bank or your email provider in your browser, simplysummarizing a Reddit postcould result in an attacker being able to steal money or your private data.

The above item was mentioned by Grant Harvey out at The Neuron in the following posting:

AI browser risks and the “AI trust tax” you’re already paying — from theneurondaily.com by Grant Harvey
PLUS: OpenAI’s new music maker + China’s 90% power?cut AI server.

Robin AI’s Big Bet on Legal Tech Meets Market Reality — from lawfuel.com

Robin’s Legal Tech Backfire
Robin AI, the poster child for the “AI meets law” revolution, is learning the hard way that venture capital fairy dust doesn’t guarantee happily-ever-after. The London-based legal tech firm, once proudly waving its genAI-plus-human-experts flag, is now cutting staff after growth dreams collided with the brick wall of economic reality.

The company confirmed that redundancies are under way following a failed major funding push. Earlier promises of explosive revenue have fizzled. Despite around $50 million in venture cash over the past two years, Robin’s 2025 numbers have fallen short of investor expectations. The team that once ballooned to 200 is now shrinking.

The field is now swarming with contenders: CLM platforms stuffing genAI into every feature, corporate legal teams bypassing vendors entirely by prodding ChatGPT directly, and new entrants like Harvey and Legora guzzling capital to bulldoze into the market. Even Workday is muscling in.

Meanwhile, ALSPs and AI-powered pseudo-law firms like Crosby and Eudia are eating market share like it’s free pizza. The number of inhouse teams actually buying these tools at scale is still frustratingly small. And investors don’t have much patience for slow burns anymore.

Why Being ‘Rude’ to AI Could Win Your Next Case or Deal — from thebrainyacts.beehiiv.com by Josh Kubicki

TL;DR: AI no longer rewards politeness—new research shows direct, assertive prompts yield better, more detailed responses. Learn why this shift matters for legal precision, test real-world examples (polite vs. blunt), and set up custom instructions in OpenAI (plus tips for other models) to make your AI a concise analytical tool, not a chatty one. Actionable steps inside to upgrade your workflow immediately.

Is Your Institution Ready for the Earnings Premium Buzzsaw? — from ailearninsights.substack.com by Alfred Essa

On Wednesday [October 29th, 2025], I’m launching the Beta version of an Education Accountability Website (”EDU Accountability Lab”). It analyzes federal student aid, institutional outcomes, and accountability metrics across 6,000+ colleges and universities in the US.

Our Mission
The EDU Accountability Lab delivers independent, data-driven analysis of higher education with a focus on accountability, affordability, and outcomes. Our audience includes policymakers, researchers, and taxpayers who seek greater transparency and effectiveness in postsecondary education. We take no advocacy position on specific institutions, programs, metrics, or policies. Our goal is to provide clear and well-documented methods that support policy discussions, strengthen institutional accountability, and improve public understanding of the value of higher education.

But right now, there’s one area demanding urgent attention.

Starting July 1, 2026, every degree program at every institution receiving federal student aid must prove its graduates earn more than people without that credential—or lose Title IV eligibility.

This isn’t about institutions passing or failing. It’s about programs. Every Bachelor’s in Psychology. Every Master’s in Education. Every Associate in Nursing. Each one assessed separately. Each one facing the same pass-or-fail tests.

70% of Americans say feds shouldn’t control admissions, curriculum [Schwartz]

On 10/27/2025, in colleges, community colleges, curriculum, faculty/staff, funding / grants, future of higher education, higher education, learning ecosystem, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, research, society, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

70% of Americans say feds shouldn’t control admissions, curriculum — from highereddive.com by Natalie Schwartz
The Public Religion Research Institute poll comes as the Trump administration is pressuring colleges to change their policies.

Dive Brief:

Most polled Americans, 70%, disagreed that the federal government should control “admissions, faculty hiring, and curriculum at U.S. colleges and universities to ensure they do not teach inappropriate material,” according to a survey released Wednesday by the Public Religion Research Institute.
The majority of Americans across political parties — 84% of Democrats, 75% of independents and 58% of Republicans — disagreed with federal control over these elements of college operations.
The poll’s results come as the Trump administration seeks to exert control over college workings, including in its recent offer of priority for federal research funding in exchange for making sweeping policy changes aligned with the government’s priorities.

Also see:

‘Nothing less than government control’: Higher ed responds to Trump’s compact — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee
Federal officials offered preferential funding treatment to nine initial colleges in exchange for sweeping changes. Here’s how they replied.

The Most Innovative Law Schools (2025) — from abovethelaw.com by Staci Zaretsky
Forget dusty casebooks — today’s leaders in legal education are using AI, design thinking, and real-world labs to reinvent how law is taught.

“[F]rom AI labs and interdisciplinary centers to data-driven reform and bold new approaches to design and client service,” according to National Jurist’s preLaw Magazine, these are the law schools that “exemplify innovation in action.”

North Carolina Central University School of Law
Suffolk University Law School
UC Berkeley School of Law
Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law
Northeastern University School of Law
Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University
Seattle University School of Law
Case Western Reserve University School of Law
University of Miami School of Law
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University
Vanderbilt University Law School
Southwestern Law School

Click here to read short summaries of why each school made this year’s list of top innovators.

Clio’s Metamorphosis: From Practice Management To A Comprehensive AI And Law Practice Provider — from abovethelaw.com by Stephen Embry
Clio is no longer a practice management company. It’s much more of a comprehensive provider of all needs of its customers big and small.

Newton delivered what may have been the most consequential keynote in the company’s history and one that signals a shift by Clio from a traditional practice management provider to a comprehensive platform that essentially does everything for the business and practice of law.
…
Clio also earlier this year acquired vLex, the heavy-duty AI legal research player. The acquisition is pending regulatory approval. It is the vLex acquisition that is powering the Clio transformation that Newton described in his keynote.

vLex has a huge amount of legal data in its wheelhouse to power sophisticated legal AI research. On top of this data, vLex developed Vincent, a powerful AI tool to work with this data and enable all sorts of actions and work.

This means a couple of things. First, by acquiring vLex, Clio can now offer its customers AI legal research tools. Clio customers will no longer have to go one place for its practice management needs and a second place for its substantive legal work, like research. It makes what Clio can provide much more comprehensive and all inclusive.

‘Adventures In Legal Tech’: How AI Is Changing Law Firms — from abovethelaw.com
Ernie the Attorney shares his legal tech takes.

Artificial intelligence will give solos and small firms “a huge advantage,” according to one legal tech consultant.

In this episode of “Adventures in Legal Tech,” host Jared Correia speaks with Ernie Svenson — aka “Ernie the Attorney” — about the psychology behind resistance to change, how law firms are positioning their AI use, the power of technology for business development, and more.

Legal software: how to look for and compare AI in legal technology — from legal.thomsonreuters.com by Chris O’Leary

Highlights

Legal ops experts can categorize legal AI platforms and software by the ability to streamline key tasks such as legal research, document processing or analysis, and drafting.
The trustworthiness and accuracy of AI hinge on the quality of its underlying data; solutions like CoCounsel Legal are grounded in authoritative, expert-verified content from Westlaw and Practical Law, unlike providers that may rely on siloed or less reliable databases.
When evaluating legal software, firms should use a framework that assesses critical factors such as integration with existing tech stacks, security, scalability, user adoption, and vendor reputation.

ASU Law appoints a director of AI and Legal Tech Studio, advancing its initiative to reimagine legal education — from law.asu.edu

The Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University appointed Sean Harrington as director of the newly established AI and Legal Tech Studio, a key milestone in ASU Law’s bold initiative to reimagine legal education for the artificial intelligence era. ASU, ranked No. 1 in innovation for the 11th consecutive year, drives AI solutions that enhance teaching, enrich student training and facilitate digital transformation.

The American Legal Technology Awards Name 2025 Winners — from natlawreview.com by Tom Martin

The sixth annual American Legal Technology Awards were presented on Wednesday, October 15th, at Suffolk University Law School (Boston), recognizing winners across ten categories. There were 211 nominees who were evaluated by 27 judges.

The honorees on the night included:

“Future of Professionals Report” analysis: Why AI will flip law firm economics — from thomsonreuters.com by Ragunath Ramanathan
AI forces a reinvention of law firm billing models, the market will reward those firms that price by outcome, guarantee efficiency, and are transparent. The question then isn’t whether to change — it’s whether firms will stand on the sidelines or lead

Key insights:

Efficiency and cost savings are expected — AI is significantly increasing efficiency and reducing costs in the legal industry, with each lawyer expecting to save 190 work-hours per year by leveraging AI, resulting in approximately $20 billion worth of work-savings in the US alone.
Challenges to the billable hour model — The traditional billable hour model is being challenged by AI advancements, as lawyers are now able to complete tasks more efficiently and quickly, leading some law firms to explore alternative pricing models that reflect the value delivered rather than the time spent.
Opportunities for smaller law firms — AI presents unique opportunities for smaller law firms to differentiate themselves and compete with larger firms, as AI solutions allow smaller firms to access advanced technology without significant investment and deliver innovative pricing models.

The legal industry is undergoing a significant transformation that’s being driven by the rapid adoption of AI — a shift that is poised to redefine traditional practices, particularly the billable hour model, a cornerstone of law firm operations.
…
Not surprisingly, AI is anticipated to have the biggest impact on the legal industry over the next five years, with 80% of law firm survey respondents to Thomson Reuters recently published 2025 Future of Professionals report saying that they expect AI to fundamentally alter how they conduct business, especially around how law firms price, staff, and deliver legal work to their clients.

International AI Safety Report

On 10/21/2025, in 21st century, Africa, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, Canada, ethics, Europe, human-computer interaction (HCI), India, intelligent systems, legislatures / government / legal, mathematics, platforms, programming, science, society, surviving, UK, United States, by Daniel Christian

International AI Safety Report — from internationalaisafetyreport.org

About the International AI Safety Report
The International AI Safety Report is the world’s first comprehensive review of the latest science on the capabilities and risks of general-purpose AI systems. Written by over 100 independent experts and led by Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio, it represents the largest international collaboration on AI safety research to date. The Report gives decision-makers a shared global picture of AI’s risks and impacts, serving as the authoritative reference for governments and organisations developing AI policies worldwide. It is already shaping debates and informing evidence-based decisions across research and policy communities.

Learning Ecosystems

Clio Completes Historic $1 Billion vLex Acquisition, Announces $500 Million Series G at $5 Billion Valuation, Plus Exclusive Interview with CEO and CFO

Two items for those who like to pulsecheck what’s up with journalism

70% of Americans say feds shouldn’t control admissions, curriculum [Schwartz]

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