Thomson Reuters has officially closed its acquisition of Casetext, a legal technology company focused on using machine learning and AI to develop products such as the company’s CoCounsel – a GPT-4 based AI paralegal. “The acquisition supports Thomson Reuters’ ‘build, partner and buy’ strategy to provide generative AI solutions to its customers and the company’s efforts to redefine the future of professionals through applications of generative AI,” the company said in a statement press release.
Casetext also appeared in one ABA Journal Story of how CoCounsel helped the California Innocence Project draft emails, memos, and conduct legal research, allowing the pro bono organization to work more efficiently with their limited resources. “I think this is a profound opportunity for the legal profession to live up to its ideals,” says Pablo Arredondo, Casetext’s co-founder and chief technology officer, of AI’s potential to close the justice gap.
Despite developing products based on OpenAI’s GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 models, legal tech companies seem largely unfazed by the growing body of lawsuits against the AI giant. LegalTech News reports. As lawsuits progress, companies may need to look for alternative models to advance their own offerings or adopt an “LLM-agnostic mindset.”
Speaking of lawsuits against OpenAI, The New York Times has begun exploring legal action against the ChatGPT creator “to protect intellectual property rights associated with its reporting.” NPR reports, adding that the news organization and OpenAI “were engaged in tense negotiations over entering into a licensing deal in which OpenAI would pay the Times to integrate its stories into the tech company’s AI tools.”
In the latest chapter in the agency’s crackdown on data brokers, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau intends to propose new restrictions on the sale of personal information for use in digital advertising and artificial intelligence. Bloomberg law reports. The new restrictions aim to “prohibit the sale of consumer data, including so-called ‘credit header data’ such as an individual’s name, address or social security number, for the purpose of targeted advertising.”
AI Trainer, a new product from contract lifecycle management company Agiloft, enables “non-technical legal and business professionals to train its AI to identify key terms and clauses,” it says LawSites. The goal? Reducing the need for specialists when it comes to training generative AI according to a company’s individual preferences and styles.
Some experts believe gaining the public’s trust should be a priority for AI companies looking to stay ahead of regulatory pressures Bloomberg Laws Reporting on the National Conference of State Legislatures in Indianapolis. Transparent practices by technology companies and regulation that balances the “risks and benefits of emerging technology” will be key factors in building public trust.
Ethan Beberness is a Brooklyn-based writer who covers legal tech, small law firms, and in-house counsel for Above the Law. His coverage of legal events and the legal services industry has appeared in Law360, Bushwick Daily and elsewhere.
