Should law firms share AI tools with their clients and peers?
Should BigLaw firms that created their own artificial intelligence tools share them with clients or other firms? (Shutterstock)
Several BigLaw firms that have built their own artificial intelligence tools have initiated plans to share them with clients or other firms.
Among them, Cooley is making its Cooley Go Lab, a workspace for startups developed with legal AI provider Legora, available to this summer’s Y Combinator startup cohort for free, according to a story from Law.com.
“There’s an aspect to this where we want people thinking about Cooley as providing best-in-class information, that’s not a secret,” Matthew Bartus, the firm’s emerging companies and venture capital global co-chair, told Law.com.
Debevoise & Plimpton’s STAAR 2.0, which was also built with the help of Legora, is a subscription-based platform that helps clients deploy AI, Law.com reports. And A&O Shearman has a revenue-sharing agreement with legal AI provider Harvey that allows it to license its AI tools to clients and other firms.
Sharing these tools could benefit firms by helping them scale their practices and add another revenue stream, Law.com reports. But other firms also told the publication there are risks to providing AI tools to clients.
“Most firms are afraid of clients using AI, or they’re afraid of licensing their own secret sauce to their peers,” Helen Fan, the chief AI officer of MagStone Law and a law firm AI consultant, told Law.com. “If a client can do it themselves, why would they still pay the law firms?”
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