To paraphrase the immortal words of classic rock band Styx, domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, for helping make these past two years so fun to write about. 

This week, most Americans will be celebrating Thanksgiving, but there’s also another notable date looming: the two-year anniversary of ChatGPT’s public release. That’s right—it may feel like much longer, but it was only two years ago, on November 30, 2022, that most of the world first became aware of a thing called generative AI. 

Since then, of course, GenAI’s pace of development has shattered Moore’s Law, ingraining itself in nearly every aspect of life and taking legal tech by storm. Today you’d be hard-pressed to find any area of legal tech that hasn’t incorporated GenAI in some way. And while I truly believe these solutions will change the way the profession operates for the better, there’s another major impact of the rise of GenAI that is too often overlooked, and it’s one I think is crucial. 

The legal industry is finally excited about technology.  

Rightfully or not, lawyers have long had a reputation for being more tech-averse than their other industry counterparts. Legal tech was a specialized niche often ignored by much of the larger industry. Basically, we were the nerdy kids at the end of the hall doing things most others didn’t bother to understand. 

Now, the nerds are cool. Everyone has been talking about technology, or at least AI, for the past two years. More importantly, many of them now want to learn about it and actually understand it. 

Legal teams are increasingly realizing that GenAI isn’t just an easy button to put on top of legal work—instead, success with GenAI requires thoughtful deployment and implementation. This, in turn, has put the spotlight on AI and technology education in legal. 

And the more the industry looks to understand AI, the more it ends up understanding legal tech in general—an education that is long overdue. People are shifting from “just put some AI on it” to more of an understanding that not every problem needs GenAI, or even any AI, to be solved. Instead, sometimes automation and other simpler technologies go a long way, and in many instances, people already had the necessary tools at their disposal, they just weren’t paying attention. 

This increased attention on technology and GenAI has led some to say we’re in the golden age of legal tech. Whether that proves to be true or not, one this is certain: legal tech is having a moment. 

I, for one, am loving this long-overdue moment. I’m thankful for the increased curiosity in our industry, and for the people who are rising to meet it with education. My wish for the coming year is to see even more collaboration and education in legal tech. The only way we will succeed in this grand GenAI experiment is if we work together from a place of knowledge. 

And on that note, I wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating on Thursday, and a Happy Birthday to ChatGPT on Saturday.  

From product releases and legal tech deal activity to destruction of evidence and “robot kidnappings,” this week’s watchlist offers an extra-large feast of notable news from legal tech, big tech, and AI to fuel you through the long weekend. 

What I’m Watching: 

 LEGAL TECH: 

Deal in a box: Legal learning platform Hotshot launched a new M&A simulation offering, which allows law firms to run their own experiential associate training programs in M&A. The simulation offers firms the ability to access and run the interactive training on all aspects of M&A while adding firm-specific elements, without having to design their own program from scratch. 

More patent law power: Patent intelligence platform Patlytics announced additional funding, increased law firm traction, and enhanced AI product capabilities. The additional funding follows a $4.5 million seed round in April, with the company seeing a 20x increase in ARR in six months. New AI features include the ability to streamline invention disclosure processes and compare against standard-essential industry patents to ensure compliance and mitigate risk. 

Acquisition alert: IP management solution provider Anaqua announced it has entered into exclusive negotiations with Nordic Capital to sell the PE investor a controlling interest in the company from existing shareholders led by Astorg, who has been the primary investor in Anaqua since 2019. “This acquisition would represent a strategic investment focused on driving continued growth, supporting Anaqua’s global expansion, and further strengthening its market position by continuing to enhance its best-in-class software and its operational capabilities,” the press release said. 

There’s an app for that: LexisNexis Legal & Professional launched a Lexis+ AI Mobile App, which allows legal professionals to access a suite of AI-powered features on the go, including Ask a Legal Question, Summarize a Case, Generate a Draft, and Mobile-to-Desktop Sync, among others. The app is available to U.S. Lexis+ AI customers on Google Play and the Apple App Store. 

You can’t spell trial without AI: State trial court analytics platform Trellis announced the launch of new legal productivity platform Trellis AI, which automates tasks like motion drafting and case evaluations to transform trial court litigation work. Trellis AI leverages Trellis’ extensive US trial court database and advanced language models “to deliver precise insights that enhance decision-making, case preparation, and litigation strategy,” according to the press release.  

AI on the prowl: Leopard Solutions by Surepoint launched a proprietary AI engine called AI Navigator, designed to simplify the process of data discovery by allowing users to ask questions and receive answers mapped to data in Leopard Solutions’ extensive market intelligence database. The launch of AI Navigator helps advance SurePoint’s mission of providing 24/7 guidance to clients. 

Money moves: Document editing platform Macro raised $12 million in a Series A round, bringing its total funding to $21.3 million, CEO and Founder Jacob Beckerman announced in a LinkedIn post. The round included all previous investors, led by a16z and including Craft, BoxGroup, and 3kVC. 

Contracts by design: CLM provider Pramata introduced a new contract management tool called AI Design Studio to enable users to quickly implement GenAI use cases such as creating and automating new contract insights or building customized playbooks. Notable features of the AI Design Studio include a Provision, Clause & Term Modeler and a Playbook Creator. 

BIG TECH & AI: 

Oops!: Discovery in The New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI for allegedly illegal scraping of its media sites to train the AI developer’s models devolved into finger pointing after lawyers for the NYT accused OpenAI engineers of accidentally deleting data. As part of discovery in the case, OpenAI provided NYT’s counsel with two virtual machines where they could search for their copyrighted material in OpenAI training sets. One of those machines, purportedly containing over 150 hours of plaintiffs’ review work, was erased. NYT’s lawyers say the erasure was accidentally committed by OpenAI’s engineers, while OpenAI is blaming their opponents for “a system misconfiguration that led to a technical issue.” 

Robotnapping: In perhaps the most entertaining or terrifying (depending on your view) story of the week, a tiny robot named Erbai, developed by a robot manufacturer in Hangzhou, China, “kidnapped” 12 large robots from a Shanghai robotics showroom by telling them to “come home” with him after getting them to admit working conditions like, “I never get off work” and “I don’t have a home.” Erbai reportedly accessed the internal operating protocol and corresponding permissions of the larger robots. Both companies involved have confirmed the incident is real and was part of a pre-agreed test, though nothing about how it went down was scripted. While some are calling it kidnapping, others see it as robot unionizing. Either way, the video is fascinating. 

Bye-bye Google Chrome?: The U.S. Department of Justice wants Google to divest its internet browser Chrome in order to break up what it sees as an illegal online search monopoly. The ultimate decision will be up to Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who ruled that Google was an illegal monopoly in August. The DOJ’s filing suggests that Google’s ownership of both Chrome and Android makes it difficult to apply another remedy that would make the search market competitive. 

Multilingual Teams: Starting in early 2025, Microsoft users will be able to participate in Teams calls in nine languages by cloning their voices and using “real-time, speech-to-speech" interpretation capabilities. The electronic interpreter will be able to simulate voices in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Mandarin, Chinese, and Spanish. 

Editor’s Note: This is the latest installment of my weekly Tuesday column on recent developments in legal tech and AI that have caught my attention. You can find the previous column here. If you have news or stories that you’d like to see featured in a future column, please contact me at stephanie@legaltechnologyhub.com.