+ Legal AI startups land $750 million in fresh funding.

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The Daily Docket

The Daily Docket

A newsletter by Reuters and Westlaw

 

By Caitlin Tremblay

Good morning. Most courts were closed yesterday but today’s calendar is packed, including 1st Circuit arguments over Planned Parenthood funding. Plus, the AI boom is fueling legal tech investments; the CFPB plans to narrow a civil rights era lending law; and we have a look at President Trump’s legal threats against the BBC. Kim Kardashian is pretty mad at psychics who told her she would pass the bar exam (she didn’t). Let’s dive into Wednesday.

 

AI boom fuels fresh wave of legal tech investments

 

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Investors in recent weeks have injected more than $750 million in new cash into startups that make AI products for lawyers, betting on a growing legal AI marketplace competing for legal industry customers.

One such investment? GC AI, which makes AI tools for in-house corporate legal teams for tasks like drafting documents and analyzing contracts. The company said on Wednesday it raised $60 million in new funding, valuing the San Francisco-based company at $555 million. Sara Merken has more on this and other recent investments in legal AI here.

 

Coming up today

  • The U.S. Supreme Court will hear two oral arguments.
  • The 1st Circuit will consider whether the Trump administration may implement a provision of his recently enacted tax and spending bill that would deprive Planned Parenthood and its members of Medicaid funding. The appeals court stayed a lower-court judge's injunction while it considers the case. Read the lower court’s PI.
  • U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden in D.C. will hold a preliminary injunction hearing in a lawsuit brought by a former Amazon delivery driver against the EEOC for ceasing investigations into workplace policies with discriminatory impacts, including her complaint accusing the online retail giant of sex discrimination. Read the complaint.
  • OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma will go before a bankruptcy judge in White Plains, New York, for a hearing on whether to confirm its latest Chapter 11 plan and approve a $7.4 billion settlement of legal claims related to the company's sales of addictive opioid medication.
  • U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in D.C. will hold a status conference in lawsuits over the collision this year between an American Airlines regional jet and a U.S. Army helicopter that killed 67 people near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Reyes has set the trial for 2027. 
  • Trading platform Robinhood will urge U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston to block the state of Massachusetts from initiating an enforcement action that seeks to prevent it from operating a sports prediction platform in the state. 
  • The Wyoming Supreme Court will consider whether the state is underfunding its schools in violation of the Wyoming constitution. Earlier this year, a trial court found that the state was inadequately and inequitably funding public schools and ordered lawmakers to address the shortfalls. Read that ruling here.
  • Opening statements will begin in Brooklyn federal court in a case against Linda Sun, a former top aide to Governors Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul. Sun is facing charges for allegedly acting as a foreign agent for the Chinese government without registering with the U.S. Attorney General. Sun and her husband Chris Hu are also charged with money laundering and federal program bribery.
  • Abigail Jo Shry of Alvin, Texas, is scheduled to be sentenced after admitting she called the chambers of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in D.C., who was overseeing the since-dismissed 2020 election subversion criminal case against President Trump, and made threats.
  • U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Marutollo in Brooklyn will oversee the arraignment of Cleveland Guardians pitcher Luis Leandro Ortiz-Ribera, who is facing charges related to sports betting and money laundering conspiracy.
  • U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken will speak in conversation with Professor Abbe Gluck at Yale Law School.

Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.

 

More top news

  • Does Trump have a defamation case against the BBC?
  • U.S. Supreme Court extends pause on order requiring Trump to fully fund food aid
  • CFPB to narrow civil rights era lending law, sources say
 
 

Industry insight

  • Moves: Private credit lawyers Frederick Cristman and James Adams joined Mayer Brown from Hogan Lovells … Greenberg Traurig added corporate lawyers Ashok Lalwani from Baker McKenzie and Chi Pan from Goodwin. The firm also added global trade lawyer Junko Suetomi from Baker McKenzie.
 

$303 million

That’s how much the NCAA agreed to pay to thousands of current and former college coaches to settle a class action alleging they were unlawfully denied wages under a long-standing NCAA policy. Read the proposed settlement here.

 

"They all collectively, maybe four of them, have told me I was gonna pass the bar, so they’re all full pathological liars — don’t believe anything they say."

—Kim Kardashian on TikTok