With artificial intelligence (AI) becoming more widespread and present in our everyday lives, the technology now seems to be targeting the legal industry, with one startup raising $1.7 million towards the development of an in-house ‘AI paralegal.’
As it happens, WilsonAI, a new London-based legal tech startup – co-founded by former Clifford Chance private equity lawyer Gus Neate and Alex Wang, who was previously at quant trading house D.E. Shaw – has pooled these resources in pre-seed funding, according to a report on February 24.
According to the company, its goal is to remove “legal bottlenecks by handling routine contract reviews, responding to frequently asked legal questions, and integrating seamlessly with internal legal knowledge bases.” This way, they plan to address the “pain points” faced by in-house lawyers.
What does an AI paralegal do?
The duo, who met when working at startup incubator Entrepreneur First, explained that WilsonAI stands out because they designed it to act “as the first line of defense” for in-house teams. To achieve this, it connects to Word, Notion, Slack, and other key systems.
Additionally, it helps businesses be self-sufficient in other areas – such as sales and procurement, handling day-to-day needs (e.g. contracts), and so on – without having to call on the legal team unless absolutely necessary. They can choose to escalate to the legal team, but the idea of WilsonAI is to be an “AI paralegal that takes the first stab at things.”
Furthermore, Neate and Wang are working on a proprietary Legal Large Action Model (LLAM), which would allow the product to understand legal workflows and improve automation over time. This would mean that “unlike static AI tools, WilsonAI continuously refines its capabilities based on real-world usage.”
Commenting on the product, Wang, who is also WilsonAI’s CTO, explained:
“We’re building an AI that doesn’t just answer questions but actively participates in legal teams’ daily workflows. By integrating with in-house legal data and processes, WilsonAI’s AI paralegal becomes an invaluable team member, delivering efficiency and consistency at scale.”
Indeed, upon deployment, WilsonAI has demonstrated it can “automate over 50% of routine legal queries and accelerates contract review processes by up to 70%. This translates to significant time savings for legal teams, with in-house lawyers reporting they can redirect 15 to 20 hours per week to strategic work.”
Investors’ vote of confidence
It seems that investors, led by Noman Ventures, with participation from Autopilot Ventures, Entrepreneur First, Transpose, and key strategic angels including Mei Z, several exited founders, and law firm partners, were quite impressed with WilsonAI, as they jointly pooled $1.7 million towards it.
Explaining the reason why his company, Nomad Ventures, decided to invest in AI paralegal development, its founding partner James Mumma, said:
“WilsonAI is addressing one of the biggest pain points in corporate legal departments: the overwhelming volume of routing legal work. Gus and Alex have built a world-class team that understands both the legal and AI landscapes and their AI paralegal has the potential to become an essential tool for in-house legal teams worldwide.”
All things considered, AI promises to be quite helpful in the legal industry. That said, trusting AI alone to help with legal woes might not always go as planned, as one Canadian couple had the misfortune to find out when a chatbot fed them false information on legal precedents pertaining to their case.
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