- Legora and Tamimi partnership
- English platform already in use
- Lawyers using AI for routine work
Legal artificial intelligence startup Legora and Gulf law company Tamimi & Co are launching an Arabic legal AI platform in the coming weeks.
The interface has been developed using Arabic-native content from around the Middle East and North Africa, including case law and other resources, rather than translating English texts, the companies told AGBI.
Tamimi has been using Legora’s English platform alongside other legal AIs for the past few years, according to its chief information officer, Colin Short. But there are language-related gaps that limit accuracy and usability for Arabic-speaking lawyers, he said.
“It’s a big thing to be able to work in your own language.
“Yes, you can get output translated, but the whole interface is in English, it’s written from left to right and is based on English content.”
For Stockholm-based Legora, working with Tamimi has helped it source and verify Arabic content to develop the platform as it looks to expand in the Middle East.
Legora, which raised $550 million at a $5.5 billion valuation in March, followed by a $50 million extension with backers including Nvidia’s NVentures, wants to open an office in the Gulf “as a strategic priority”, said Leonard Schreij, its vice-president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“To succeed in the region, with 17-plus countries and multiple dialects, offering Legora in Arabic is critical,” Schreij said.
The interface incorporates the technical nuances of Middle Eastern legal systems, including sharia, he said.
To date, the relative scarcity of Arabic online content has limited AI’s ability to generate meaningful responses. Collating and digitising Arabic legal material has been a valuable undertaking, Schreij said. The Tamimi partnership, announced last November, was a “product development” rather than a commercial venture, he added.
Legora seeks to curb risk through a “robust” citation system and by flagging to users when it is not certain or where material is contradictory or inconclusive.
Law firms’ AI adoption is on the rise, reaching 86 percent of mid-sized firms in the US this year, according to software company Clio. Lawyers are using AI to perform routine tasks such as basic contract review, preliminary research or document comparison.
However, the scope of legal AI is broadening rapidly and it can now perform sophisticated tasks such as workflow management, due diligence and e-discovery, or digital investigation of documents to be used as evidence in lawsuits — “finding that ‘smoking gun’”, said Short.
The next phase is agentic AI, which can process complex instructions, make plans and take autonomous steps to complete tasks, “so lawyers can work with it like a colleague”, according to Schreij.
“AI is not going to replace lawyers, but lawyers using AI will replace those that don’t,” said Short.
Gulf lawyers welcomed such advances and the Arabic AI tool. “We are investing heavily in AI, including to support large, complex transactions, investigations and disputes,” said Matthew Dening, general manager of Baker McKenzie in Riyadh.
“Language capability is a key consideration and that is very true when it comes to Arabic.”
Ahmed Ibrahim, managing partner of Ibrahim & Partners, said: “There is a gap for Arabic AI and Arabic legal resources generally. We don’t have the [English] Practical Law Review, with precedents across practice areas.”
However, he warned of the potential for AI “disasters”, pointing to US law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, which had to apologise to a court in April because a filing it had made contained errors resulting from AI “hallucinations”.
“I’m overcautious, but I’d rather be a bit behind the curve than suffer this,” Ibrahim said. AGBI approached Sullivan & Cromwell for comment.
Firms must invest in training and governance to ensure responsible use of AI, according to Short. “The biggest risk is the human factor. Lawyers have a professional obligation to ensure output is factual and references are real.”
