Meet Crosby, a new ‘hybrid AI law firm’ which is ‘building the API for human agreements’. It has raised $5.8m in a Seed round led by the giant Sequoia Capital, and is also backed by Bain Capital Ventures, as well as the founders of Ramp and Instacart – which is an impressive way to come into the world of legal tech…!
It’s a combination of lawyers and AI that has a distinctly Palo Alto-style feel to it, or as they explain: ‘We combine the speed and intelligence of AI with the safety of lawyers-in-the-loop to review contracts in under an hour.’
Or, put it another way: ‘Crosby lets the fastest growing companies reach agreement between humans, at the speed of software.’
But, you may well ask: ‘Hold on, how can you run a law firm like this in the US (outside of places like Arizona), where there are a lot of barriers for Alternative Business Structures…?’ Well, as far as AL can see they seem to have split the lawyers from the tech.
As their website states: ‘Crosby Legal PLLC is a law firm…….powered by tech from Crosby Legal, Inc.’
And PLLC in the US means ‘professional limited liability company’, which is a business entity designed for doctors and lawyers. Meanwhile, ‘Inc’ is a good old-fashioned shorthand for ‘incorporated’ – the standard formation for regular companies.
So, in some ways this is not one business, at least on paper, but clearly the goal is to operate as one.
The news comes a few weeks after Tunbridge Well-based Garfield was announced as ‘the first regulated AI law firm’ in the UK – which combines genAI and human review to handle small claims. In this case, as it’s regulated by the SRA here, it is one entity.
One could say Crosby is not that far from the ideas behind the ill-fated Atrium project of Justin Kan some years ago. However, in this case, the goals have been set at a much more down-to-Earth level.
I.e. it’s focused on the classic ‘complex but routine’ matters such as reviewing MSAs and NDAs, and has a team of human legal experts to deliver this…..but designed to tap AI from Day One. It’s also, one could argue, simply an ALSP that is using AI all the way through – and there are plenty of ALSPs now using AI for such work, albeit most didn’t start that way.
As the new company, which has just ‘come out of stealth’, explained: ‘Since quietly launching in January, we’ve reviewed over 1,000 MSAs, DPAs and NDAs for some of the fastest growing companies in history, including Cursor, Clay and UnifyGTM.’
So, how did they do this? First they are using human talent. As they explained: ‘Crosby is a small, talent-dense team, combining lawyers from Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia Law with engineers from Ramp, Vanta, Meta, and Google. We work in-person in New York City.’
Next there is the legal tech – and you can tell that this is not the usual ‘law is code, so this should be easy’ approach.
As they stated: ‘Semantics, details and nuance are foundational in law. Crosby co-founders Ryan Daniels and John Sarihan recognized that people are still better than technology at capturing the subtleties of certain clauses and connecting the dots between business context and legal documents.
‘Crosby has built their product accordingly, with both people and AI agents playing a vital role. Agents handle initial passes at standard changes, flag common issues and prepare preliminary redlines, allowing Crosby’s attorneys to focus on strategic decisions and complex legal reasoning.’
So, what’s the benefit of this? Speed is part of the story. ‘Speed to execution is our north star, and today our median review time is 58 minutes. GTM teams call Crosby a secret weapon to close deals 80% faster. We’re just getting started,’ they add.
Crosby’s customers already include Cursor, Clay and UnifyGTM. And this comes back to the very California / tech world feel of this. The founders and lawyers there are from that tech ecosystem where everything is open to reinvention. And some of their clients are from the genAI world as well. It makes total sense.
As explored before in AL – if you were to build a law firm today from Day One, making maximum use of AI and human talent, what would it look like? Well, one version of this future would be Crosby.
Good luck to them.
You can find more about the company / law firm here.
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And if this was intriguing and you’d like to stay ahead of the curve….then come along to Legal Innovators New York, Nov 19 + 20, where the brightest minds will be sharing their insights on where we are now and where we are heading.
And also, Legal Innovators UK – Nov 4 + 5 + 6
Both events, as always, are organised by the awesome Cosmonauts team!
Please get in contact with them if you’d like to take part.
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