Cleary Makes Generative AI Play With Springbok Legal Tech Buy

Cleary Gottlieb has acquired Springbok AI, bringing aboard the generative AI-focused legal technology company’s founder and a 10-person team.

The rare law firm acquisition of a technology company—Cleary declined to say how much it’s spending on the deal—comes as Big Law grapples with how to apply generative AI solutions to client work. Law firms are boosting their investment in technology tools by hiring data scientists to build internal applications and buying new software products.

Cleary’s acquisition of Springbok and its data scientists combines both of the “buy versus build” strategies. The company has developed generative AI tools used by other major law firms, including Dentons and Hogan Lovells, according to previous reports. The Springbok team now will work exclusively with Cleary’s lawyers.

“What Springbok will allow us to do is tailor and customize off-the-shelf products to the specific use cases that our clients are interested in,” Cleary’s managing partner Michael Gerstenzang said in an interview. “That takes a particular level of technological capability and sophistication.”

Founded in 2017, Springbok has rolled out generative AI products like a chatbot that it says allow law firms to run searches on documents or compare terms across documents with little to no input from technologists. The tools, underpinned by large language models, have been customized by law firms for specific practices and contract management.

Springbok also provided consultancy services, including for Dentons on the 2023 lunch of the “fleetAI” product, according to a report by a legal technology publication.

Cleary was exploring working with Springbok when it struck the deal to buy the company, said Ilona Logvinova, the law firm’s director of practice innovation.

“They are forming a new capability within our firm,” she said.

Bloomberg Law sells legal research tools and software, including some that make use of GenAI.

Leaders’ Views on AI

Gerstenzang is among the more vocal Big Law leaders supporting the adoption of generative AI, which he expects to bring “massive change” to law firms.

The technology could help law firms move away from the billable hour and also reduce the advantage of “brute force” held by the world’s largest law firms, he told Bloomberg Law in late 2023.

Technologists will play a greater role at law firms moving forward, Gerstenzang said in an interview regarding the Springbok deal,and technology spending will become a larger line item on his firm’s budget.

Unlike traditional technology spending, he said the firm’s investments in generative AI will generate a significant return. He also acknowledged it’s unclear when that return will happen—“maybe” in the near term, but “certainly” in the medium to long-term.

The billable hour will become “completely antiquated” once generative AI is doing significant work. “That is all for the good in terms of law firms and clients,” Gerstenzang said, since the value delivered by more efficient products won’t be captured by charging for time.

The rise of generative AI has also prompted concerns that younger lawyers will be replaced. Paul Weiss chair Brad Karp stoked those fears last month when he said junior lawyers could be “significantly replaced” by technologists and data scientists in the future.

Gerstenzang offered a different view.

Lawyers who don’t use technology will be replaced by those who do, he said, but that doesn’t mean the technology will reduce the overall number of attorneys.

“It is a mistake to say there’s only so much legal work and either humans or computers will do it,” Gerstenzang said. “What I don’t think is the case is that law firms won’t need associates anymore because they’ll have machines.”