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Freshfields partners discuss spinning out Freshfields Lab, its legal AI unit, to outside investors or an IPO
Senior Freshfields partners discussed carving out Freshfields Lab, the firm's legal tech arm that builds AI tools for its lawyers and clients for tasks such as document analysis and due diligence, and bringing in external investors or an IPO, according to an email exchange leaked to the Financial Times. Global managing partner Alan Mason wrote that legal tech companies are valued at 25 to 40 times revenue, and Ethan Klingsberg, co-head of US corporate and M&A, said a standalone Freshfields Lab would probably be worth billions. Klingsberg told the FT the talks are very early stage, and that a big question is whether the tools stay valuable to other firms once they run on those firms' data instead of Freshfields'.
The law firms running deal diligence for funds now see their own AI tools as sellable products, a new kind of competitor to Harvey and Legora.
Source
Read at The Global Legal Post ↗Legal Cheek ↗Financial Times (paywalled) ↗
The Global Legal Post · globallegalpost.com · Found in the news · source checked Oct 17, 2026
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