Over the past two years AI Brief has grown into a website, 19 LinkedIn pages with more than 81,000 followers and 15 newsletters with more than 41,000 subscribers. Thank you for reading Legal AI Weekly.
Until now this newsletter was assembled automatically from the news assigned to it. From this edition our small team, Maiko, Rene and Stefan, edits every edition so it reads as one storyline. We still use AI tooling throughout, and we decide what goes in and how it is told.
In this edition:
- Microsoft launches Copilot for Legal, and legal research providers plug into it.
- Legora signs with Sirion and Laurel; Sirion also partners with Deloitte.
- Freshfields discusses spinning out its legal AI unit; Harvey heads to Japan.
Microsoft brings legal work into Copilot
Microsoft launched Copilot for Legal worldwide: more than 20 legal skills in Copilot for contract review, drafting, obligation tracking, research and case work in Word and Cowork, plus plugins from more than two dozen legal tech companies. Copilot for Legal
Two of them arrived the same week. Trellis brings more than 2.5 billion state trial court records from 45 US states into Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Bloomberg Law released a connector to search federal and state dockets and follow cases from Copilot. Trellis · Bloomberg Law
Research inside the tools lawyers already use
Thomson Reuters launched the next CoCounsel Legal globally, with research from more than 100 countries and territories in one workflow; it starts in the UK and rolls out to more than 90 countries during 2026. Smokeball adds Westlaw Deep Research to its Archie AI later this month, with CoCounsel Legal to follow in early 2027. CoCounsel Legal · Smokeball
Legora and Sirion
Legora and Sirion will connect their platforms: Sirion's contract data becomes available in Legora for research and drafting, and Legora's research in Sirion for contract review, with Sirion staying the system of record. It starts with selected beta customers. Legora and Sirion
Legora also partnered with Laurel to turn work done in Legora into time entries on the right client matter, and Sirion launched a US alliance with Deloitte Tax for contract and supplier management. Laurel · Deloitte
Firms and markets
Senior Freshfields partners discussed separating Freshfields Lab and bringing in outside investors, with private investment and even an IPO among the options, the Financial Times reported. Harvey plans to open a Tokyo office in the first quarter of 2027, working with Legalscape on Japanese legal sources. Freshfields · Harvey
J.S. Held's AI Disputes Monitor added 42 matters in the third quarter, bringing it to 468; the disputes now go beyond training data and copyright to AI outputs, safeguards, automated decisions and board oversight. AI disputes
Also
Steno opened a beta of Litigation Genius, a workspace for whole case files with page level citations. Turbo Law expanded to all civil practice areas and passed 3,000 active matters. Milyli added AI redaction to Blackout, including native Excel. SixFifty launched an agent for HR compliance. Docusign's agreement management now runs inside Salesforce, Agentforce and Slack. Steno · Turbo Law · Milyli · SixFifty · Docusign
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