Major US law firm, Willkie, is partnering with OpenAI to develop ‘AI solutions across the firm’s legal and business operations, including a firmwide rollout of ChatGPT Enterprise’. The move comes ahead of OpenAI formally rolling out its own legal vertical capabilities, which it hired ex-Ironclad founder Jason Boehmig to lead (see his comment below).
The collaboration also extends to OpenAI Codex, they added, which Willkie expects to integrate into its AI development environment through Willkie Works. And it’s also expected – by AL – that OpenAI’s legal push will happen via a new ‘Codex for Legal’ capability – a bit like Claude for Legal.
Willkie ‘will use the latest OpenAI frontier models, technical resources and enterprise capabilities, supporting the continued evolution of the firm’s growing portfolio of AI-powered platforms while expanding access to advanced AI capabilities across the organization’, they said.
Willkie already has a long history of innovation, initially via its Wendell applications (see below). They added that the OpenAI ‘collaboration builds upon Willkie Works, the firm’s AI and innovation organization, which is focused on developing proprietary technologies and integrating them safely and securely into legal and business workflows’.
Commenting on the move Thomas Cerabino, Willkie Chairman, said: ‘AI is changing the practice of law. We have been through pivotal transformations before and are embracing this generational shift, supporting our position as a leader in the AI evolution.
‘The opportunity AI presents is not simply to work faster, but to rethink how legal services are delivered, how institutional knowledge is leveraged and how clients are served. At Willkie, we are achieving this through combining exceptional legal talent with transformative technology to best meet our clients’ needs.’
Boehmig, Head of Product, Legal Vertical at OpenAI, commented: ‘With OpenAI’s frontier models and Codex, Willkie can turn its expertise and ideas into tools designed around how its professionals work and serve clients. That ability to build is genuinely new, and we’re excited to support their innovation.’
And John Elbasan, Chief Digital and Information Officer at Willkie, added: ‘This collaboration represents an important milestone in Willkie’s AI strategy. Through Willkie Works, we have invested in the people, governance frameworks and engineering capabilities necessary to transform frontier AI technologies into proprietary platforms that support legal and business workflows across the firm.’
And here are the Wilkie Wendel apps they’ve already made:
- Wendell Intelligence – Willkie’s enterprise AI platform, providing a unified interface to AI-powered legal and business workflows
- Wendell Financial Insights – a firmwide financial and matter intelligence platform supporting operational and client-service decision-making
- Wendell Horizon – an AI-powered professional development and attorney training platform
- Wendell Private Funds Secondaries Platform – a specialized solution supporting complex private funds and secondaries workflows
- Wendell Class Action Claimant Platform – a technology-enabled platform supporting claimant analysis and litigation workflows
Is this a big deal? Well, it’s a bit like what Freshfields did with Anthropic, although it doesn’t stop Willkie working with other LLM makers if they want to.
AL sees this more as a useful step forward for both parties while we all wait for OpenAI to finalise its legal offering, which clearly will then become part of this relationship.
In fact, perhaps this deal will help OpenAI to figure out what lawyers really want…?
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Two Major Legal Innovators Conferences this November
Come and join us in New York and London this November at Legal Innovators!
Legal Innovators UK – London, Nov 4 and 5
And, then Legal Innovators New York – Nov 17 and 18.
After another fantastic Legal Innovators California, where we had speakers from OpenAI, Y Combinator, Google, Meta, and many more pioneering organisations; and our stellar inaugural event in Paris this June, we are now looking forward to the landmark conferences in London and New York, both in November, and both across two days: Law Firm Day, and Inhouse Day.
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