Law&Company vows to go global with AI legal assistant

Law&Company Co., the operator of South Korea’s largest legal advice app LawTalk, will venture into the US legal tech market in five years with its new service SuperLawyer, Korea’s first-ever artificial intelligence-powered legal assistant platform, its founder said on Thursday.

“SuperLawyer is not one of many AI services,” said Kim Bon-hwan, the chief executive officer of Law&Company. “It is expected to open a new era for Korea’s legal services, and we will represent Korea at the ABA TECHSHOW organized by the American Bar Association in the US, home to legal tech, with our services in five years.”

SuperLawyer is a new legal service platform developed by Law&Company, which offers generative AI-trained legal assistant work.

It is a subscription-based AI chatbot that assists attorneys with routine and sophisticated legal tasks, such as document reviews, summaries, legal research and document drafting.

By freeing lawyers from such time-consuming work, the AI-powered legal service is expected to help legal professionals focus more on higher-value, human work like building client relationships.

“We want to help legal professionals in Korea make the best use of AI,” said Kim. “I proudly present SuperLawyer as the most reliable partner of legal professionals that will guide them to the AI era.”

A PARTNER, NOT A RIVAL, TO LAWYERS

Founded in 2012, the Korean legal tech startup has been in dispute with the Korean Bar Association (KBA) for years since the launch of now Korea’s most popular legal consulting app LawTalk, which connects users to lawyers for legal advice.

It is free to seek legal advice for its users but the lawyers must register and pay for advertising on the service to more exposure to potential clients.

The KBA has been barking at LawTalk’s services, accusing it of encroaching on the legal profession. It has launched legal challenges against Law&Company’s services since the release of LawTalk in 2015.

But the startup does not expect any similar conflict with the KBA over SuperLawyer because the new platform is designed to improve efficiency in attorneys’ work, said Um Boun, communications director at Law&Company.

“We have confirmed that it (SuperLawyer) does not violate any ordinance,” added Um.

SuperLawyer is trained with Law&Copmany’s Bigcase, a database boasting about 4.6 million local precedents and legal content.

Since its official launch earlier this month, its free service has garnered 1,230 registered members in nine days.

Local legal tech companies have rushed to develop similar AI legal assistant services but SuperLawyer is Korea’s first paid AI legal assistant platform.

Starting in August, users must pay to access it, and only licensed lawyers can use it.

It offers similar services to those provided by California-based legal AI company Casetext’s legal service, CoCounsel.

The global legal tech AI market is expected to grow to $46.5 billion in 2027 from $8.1 billion in 2021, according to Business Research Insights.

Write to Eun-Yi Ko at koko@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.