A former associate at Paul Weiss and Shearman & Sterling, Adam Nguyen, and co-founder Jacob Mundt have bought back the legal tech company eBrevia, which they originally started in 2011. Nguyen, who has returned as CEO, suggests the decision was largely due to the opportunities he sees in generative artificial intelligence (AI).
“We’ve reached an inflection point in the evolution and development of AI,” stated Nguyen. He added, “Automation doesn’t eliminate jobs, it frees people up to do more substantive things.”
Ebrevia, a contract review and analysis software company, was bought in an all-stock transaction with Donnelley Financial Solutions Inc. Donnelley, which had previously been a strategic investor in the startup, acquired eBrevia in 2018 and remains as a client.
Nguyen and Mundt will be the sole investors in the company going forward. They plan on innovating new products and experimenting with AI language models and platforms such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Nguyen stated the real benefit of AI is not about access but understanding the workflow and designing processes around the AI. He further explained that the company’s primary services are contract review, compliance, due diligence, and business intelligence, and emphasized their potential to enhance efficiency and accuracy at work.
Endorsing the value of automation and AI, Nguyen iterated that the technology does not seek to replace jobs but aims to empower professionals to do more substantial work. This could lead to significant improvements in terms of work efficiency, accuracy, and cost-efficiency in the legal industry.