Daniel Levine

CEO @MinuteBox | AI for corporate and transactional legal teams #legaltech

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@mikewavsz Atrium could never build partnership between its tech co and its lawyers.

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

For the same reason law schools don’t ban Westlaw/Lexis and tell you to go search the stacks

[d @throw2027]

@biglawbro Can you explain why prohibiting AI would knee cap potential earnings, rather than the opposite? Wouldn't allowing AI lead to de-skilling and therefore worse potential earnings?

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@AndyLackie Access to justice will be one of the biggest impacts of AI.

More lawsuits will be the other.

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

The “AI-native law firm” discourse reminds me of all the D2C brands of the last decade that promised lower prices at the same quality as traditional brands because they were cutting out the middle-man and had no brick and mortar, only to see all of them open up retail stores once they needed real distribution outside the podcast universe.

Every "AI-native law firm" pitch boils down to one of two things:

1. Cheaper legal work, priced on outcomes instead of hours.
2. Marked-up inference with a law license and an insurance policy.

Clients will figure out which one they're buying fast. If they do succeed in disrupting traditional law, I think their pricing, size and overhead will eventually climb to match or exceed traditional law once they reach scale, much like all the D2C brands.

https://t.co/QR121Q2xjp

[SMB Attorney @SMB_Attorney]

Another “AI-native” law firm (wtf does that even mean) launched a few weeks ago with millions in VC money and a big splash on social.

Their pitch: “We review contracts faster and cheaper than regular firms.”

A few people tagged me: “You’re cooked, bro!”

I stayed quiet because I didn’t want to be a jerk.

Anyway, that phase is over.

You can tell how much experience they actually have in our profession by what they think clients are paying for.

Clients don’t need us to identify 47 potential issues in a contract and turn AI slop in a half hour.

If your entire pitch is “we do routine legal tasks faster and cheaper,” you’re not competing with us.

You’re competing with Claude and ChatGPT.

And you’re going to lose.

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@gavinyerxa No one knows what AI native even means. It’s just a thing we all say right now.

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

Opinion and taste is far more important to creating great software than anything else.

It matters the most when going from 0 to 1.

Once you release your product and it is out in the world, it no longer belongs to you. You had plans to do this and plans to do that, but you started getting customers and they asked you to do this other thing or that other thing, and all of a sudden you are weighing your direction with the direction of the market.

The market is never wrong, but creating software by committee seldom produces great products. That’s why product vision is so important.

The best products have a strong sense of opinion and taste, but are directionally guided by the direct feedback of paying customers.

Finding that balance is how you create world-class products.

[Gordon Cassie @gordon_cassie]

The idea of "talk to your users and ask what they want" as a silver bullet for PMF discovery is majorly oversold

Like obviously you should talk to your users and potential users

But if you don't have some unique insight and opinions about what you are doing....why are you the one to be doing it.

I see a ton of entrepreneurs trying to take this advice at face value - starting discussion threads to solicit feedback for trying to schedule interviews to learn about the space.

The funny thing is that, often these entrepreneurs are steering the direction they want to go anyways so the entire thing is theatre.

Like the founder of the social network for cats:

"What are the major frustration you face with your cat?"

".... umm I don't have any."

"Do you sometimes wish that your cat had a pal?"

"...umm i guess that would be cool."

"Ahh I see so you probably want some sort of online social network with a mobile app that allows pet owners to connect and arrange meaningful experiences for their feline pals."

"Ahh sure... can we end the call now."

At the VC pitch "we spoke to hundreds of pet owners and heard unanimously that they want a social network for cats"

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

I take solace in telling myself I was number 15 on the list.

[Joe Borstein @jborstein]

Legaltech folks (and ok lawyers too). Let’s have some fun.

I’m taking fake bets on what Anthropic will IPO at. Closest without going over gets free legal tech opinions from me.

I’m guessing $1.5 Trillion.

How about you @ZachAbramowitz? @biglawbro?

@biglawbro
@ZachAbramowitz
@SMB_Attorney
@UTDealAttorney
@gordon_cassie
@scottastevenson
@NickJRishwain
@jack_newton
@heyitsalexsu
@lex_node
@zackbshapiro
@SAOliver_Atty
@noahrshinn
@writeclimbrun

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@StevePulver It’s not the role of the biggest revenue generators at a firm to abandon what they do best and become agent orchestrators.

They should continue focusing on generating lots of revenue and let client-delivery focus on innovating the delivery side.

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

He’s the biggest rainmaker because he’s affable, is great at golf, is highly responsive and knows how to network, not because he writes the best legal memos or has the keenest redlines on financing documents.

The idea that he will be disrupted by the best prompt engineers is silly.

But the lawyers who will be most useful to this partner when he leaves his big law firm to capture more of his profits will be the juniors who know how to use AI in ways that let him compete with big law and capture more margin.

He’ll remain a rainmaker, just more profitable.

[biglawbro @biglawbro]

talked to an innovation lawyer from an overlord firm. he said that the biggest rainmaker in the group he services is the only lawyer who hasn't even logged into his AI account. the rainmaker's in his 40s, and incredibly confident, talented, intelligent and ny-prep-school connected

considering that my consistent recent AI take away has been "holy shit, we were missing so much before that we were practically faking it," i doubt it'll be long bf ppl are running circles around the smug analog and the clients are wondering why he's not machine gunning issues like everyone else

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@SMB_Attorney What's the right way to frame "AI-native" law firms?

Are they cheaper alternatives to the billable hour?

Or are they marked-up inference but with a license to practice and insurance?

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@BBCWorld Every board says it has a governance process. Days like this are when you find out if the minutes, resolutions and records actually back it up.

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@jack_newton A new customer every 12 minutes is incredible. Legal tech has quickly gone from market push to market pull.

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@BLaw 95 years to build. One vote to destroy.

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@theviclaw Yes. Clients hire partners, not firms, and partners know it.

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@WSJ Partners don't leave firms, they leave a math problem. When the top earners can double their pay across the street, the firm's real asset walks out the door with them.

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

I expect these premiums will be going up.

[Kush Pandey @kushpandey1811]

After months of trying to find and put in place the right solution, @crosbylegal has managed to secure $5m of insurance for its agents. This means we can have our agents do paralegal work without human oversight.

This is just the start. Lots of exciting new updates to come on this front in the next few months!

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@andrewarruda You wouldn’t download a hamburger

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@hmoesq You could always just wait it out and see where we’re at in 5 years I guess.

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

I've heard from so many senior partners that it is becoming harder and harder to justify training and mentoring juniors. AI isn't the only cause, but it is part of the story.

This seems paradoxical given that demand for legal services is way up.

If you are a junior lawyer, being AI-native is the most valuable thing you can do today. Senior lawyers and partners will need juniors with strong AI acumen to handle the increased demand for services.

[0xMarioNawfal @RoundtableSpace]

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei:

"80% of all entry-level lawyers, consultants and finance professionals will be completely wiped out within the next 1-5 years”

This is insane to hear from one of the AI leaders

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

@ClimbngThePole One thing I’m sure about when it comes to partners, they aren’t lazy. My friends that are partners at major law firms are some of the hardest working people I know.

[Daniel Levine @daniellevine]

AI will create more lawyers and more demand for legal services, not less, but I don’t understand this appeal to empiricism to make that point.

This is a total category error. It’s also a straw man to those making the argument that AI will replace lawyers, which is that individuals will use AI, rather than lawyers, to serve their legal needs.

AI is nothing like these prior technology revolutions. If you were to combine all of these past advancements and multiply them by 100 you would still not have an advancement of the type like AI.

You cannot look to anything in the past to explain the impact of AI.

[Raad @R44D]

a short history of software replacing lawyers:

1973: lexis puts case law on a computer, and the 70s become the fastest decade of lawyer growth on record.

2011: headlines say e-discovery will replace armies of lawyers, and the US goes from 1.2 million of them to 1.37 million.

2025: donotpay, the "world's first robot lawyer," settles with the FTC, whose complaint says it never had lawyers test its work.

2026: AI can draft the contract, check the cites and scan every new rule in every state.

if the last 50 years are any guide, a lot of what it makes cheap was never getting done in the first place.