NewMod law firm Crosby is to provide ‘professional liability insurance for [their] agents, so that they can do autonomous legal work’, in what is an important step for the legal sector.
We have seen moves to insure the outputs of AI before, e.g. Orbital and also Corgi insurance (see below), but this is taking things further with a focus on agents. Plus, the idea behind it is perhaps more radical than before in that it’s about allowing the AI agent to be treated as a human lawyer, and thus it needs to be insured as one. (Although, they have not outlined which insurance company will help with this, yet.)
Moreover, this is necessary because – at least as far as Crosby’s CEO, Ryan Daniels, explained in a public post – this is all about the autonomy of the legal agent; of trusting the agent to do the work.
I.e. if a lawyer was really going to be ‘all over the output’, as it were, then you may not need to insure that agent’s work, as why bother? If an experienced lawyer is going to check everything before it goes out the door to a client, then you don’t need any special approach to what AI does. Why? Because the human lawyer carries the responsibility for checking each response, and then so does the firm as a whole.
But, if you then say ‘we trust our agent to do a whole matter’ and we will just send you the results ‘as is’, or perhaps allow you to connect to our platform and also just accept those agent-derived answers from within our business, then this moves into new territory. The agent de facto becomes ‘a lawyer’ in its own right, and thus needs to be insured as such.
One might rephrase the ‘if it quacks like a duck’ saying, and put it rather as: ‘If it outputs like a lawyer, then it is a lawyer’.
Here’s what Daniels said: ‘We are starting on the next chapter of Crosby: taking out professional liability insurance for our agents, so that they can do autonomous legal work.
‘Today, our lawyers review every single work output. As agents have improved in leaps over the last few months, it’s become clear this won’t be necessary in the future.
‘We are one of the first law firms to attempt this. Over the next few months, we’ll continue working closely with auditors to define evals, as well as with bar associations, state regulators, and insurance providers.’
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Now, we have seen AI insurance before. The UK’s Orbital got an insurance company to underwrite some of its AI outputs for residential property transactions. It’s also become something of a NewMod, with the launch of its own mini-law firm.
And, more generally, startup Corgi is offering AI insurance as well.
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But, as said, Crosby’s approach takes things a little bit deeper and into more radical territory, as insuring an agent is implicitly saying that you are treating that agent as an associate of the law firm – in this case a NewMod law firm.
They added that ‘If you are in legal AI and interested in partnering with us on this, please reach out!’
It will be really interesting to see where this goes, and how insurance companies and Bar organisations respond, as well as the clients. But overall, what this shows is the increasing confidence in AI agent outputs – as otherwise Crosby would end up generating a very large insurance bill…!
More about Crosby here.
Also, here’s an interview with CEO Ryan Daniels with AL from earlier this year.
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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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