Legal work is often time-consuming and laborious and requires gathering information from a huge amount of documents. This challenge has led some law firms to experimentally use artificial intelligence to simplify some procedures; be driven According to the American Bar Association’s 2023 survey, 35 percent of law firms are already using AI tools in their processes.
Artificial intelligence enters
Backed by OpenAI, Harvey is one of the most successful legal tech in the field, working alongside startups like Leya and Klarity. However, Jerry Zhu and Kyle Lam, co-founders of personal injury law AI platform Supio, which just went public with $25 million in funding from Sapphire Ventures, believe there are still opportunities for a new competitor to enter. To this arena there is.
Supio leverages generative artificial intelligence to automate the massive data collection process for legal teams. “In addition to summarizing information, the platform can organize and identify documents and the parts within them to map, compile, and present cases,” said Zhou, Supio’s CEO.
Zhou explains that the idea for Supio came about after meeting with hundreds of attorneys across the United States and attending numerous conferences. Childhood friends, he and Lam decided to focus on personal injury law and class action plaintiffs’ cases; Fields that require collecting thousands of documents from various sources and analyzing the data within them.
A common background in technology
Before founding Supio, Zhu and Lam worked at Microsoft, specifically on Office 365, and then at tax compliance software company Avalara. The idea for Supio came after they left Avalara and looked for an opportunity to develop a business that, according to Zhou, would have the ability to understand complex data and identify critical relationships within it.
“We chose the legal industry because we knew that it is not only case-oriented, but also requires technological innovation,” Zhou comments. He points out that personal and class injury lawsuits typically involve many documents, including medical records, police reports, insurance claims, financial statements, consumer complaints, and more.
Differentiating Supio in the market
While startups like EvenUp and companies like Lawyaw and Atrium also use AI to draft legal documents, Zhou claims Supio stands out because of its more sophisticated technical approach. He states: “Law is very complex and sensitive, and most creators of work productivity tools do not have a real understanding of the documents that lawyers must ultimately produce.”
Zhou explains that Supio simultaneously runs hundreds of models with different functions to understand and classify documents, gradually improving the results. However, there are still concerns about the use of artificial intelligence in the legal field.
Challenges of artificial intelligence in law
Artificial intelligence like Supio, despite its theoretical power, faces challenges. Due to the sensitive nature of legal disputes, many lawyers and law firms may be reluctant to grant such tools access to confidential documents. Last year, the California Bar Association recommended that legal professionals refrain from entering client information into artificial intelligence tools without adequate security. Zhou says Supio stores customer data in its country of origin and adheres to security protocols that comply with privacy regulations, including HIPAA and GDPR.
On the other hand, there are also concerns about the accuracy of artificial intelligence. For example, last year, a group of lawyers used ChatGPT to prepare a lawsuit that resulted in a $5,000 fine for providing false information.
The future of Supio in the legal market
Nevertheless, Supio continues to attract new customers. According to Zhu, the platform currently cooperates with about 30 personal and group injury law firms and expects to reach 100 firms by the end of the year. The annual recurring revenue of this startup has exceeded one million dollars.
In a survey of legal executives by LexisNexis, 90 percent of executives said they expect their investments in generative AI to increase over the next five years. Gartner also predicts that the legal technology market will reach $50 billion by 2027. In this perspective, Supio continues to develop and grow.
“We plan to expand our client base in the short term and eventually expand into other legal specialties,” Zhou says. Having raised $33 million in funding, it looks like Supio is ready to take on the industry giants.
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