Jimoh Ovbiagele, once a co-founder of the now-defunct AI legal research startup ROSS Intelligence, is making his comeback to the legal tech space. As CEO of the fresh startup Bench IQ, Ovbiagele aims to exploit generative AI to offer wide-ranging insights into judges’ decision-making behaviors, considering not only their written decisions but also their bench rulings.
The Toronto-based firm recently wrapped up a pre-seed funding round amounting to $2.1 million, receiving backing from venture capital firms Maple and Haystack. The former focuses its investments towards companies with Canadian roots while the latter caters to early-stage ventures.
Among others, notable contributors to this funding round were Jason Boehmig, CEO of Ironclad and Qasar Younis, CEO of Applied Intuition and ex-COO of Y-Combinator; law firms like Cooley, Fenwick, and Wilson Sonsini and senior partners from Kirkland & Ellis; along with Ovbiagele’s erstwhile ROSS co-founder Andrew Arruda, who presently heads the health data company Flexpa.
Ovbiagele shed light on the conception of Bench IQ. The idea found birth within the mind of Jeffrey Gettleman, an ex-partner at Kirkland & Ellis and now Bench IQ’s co-founder and VP of Legal Services.
However, if you’re expecting a detailed exposition of the startup’s technology, you’d be left disappointed due to pending patents. But Ovbiagele stressed that the firm comprises an innovative data set and will use large language models (LLMs) to present all-encompassing insights into the decision-making habits of judges, systematically covering 100% of their rulings.
The mission of Bench IQ is to unravel a lingering issue in the legal field. Ovbiagele elaborated that only 3% of judges’ rulings are usually encapsulated within judicial opinions. Lawyers, therefore, face a dearth of information when they wish to comprehend their judge’s views pertaining to different concerns in their cases, especially during court document preparation or oral argument strategizing. Aiming to resolve this issue is Bench IQ’s primary quest.
He further emphasized the distinction between Bench IQ and its legal analytics counterparts, such as Lex Machina or Pre/Dicta. Ovbiagele pointed out that Bench IQ moves beyond statistical representation of judicial behavior and delves into the reasons behind the decisions, providing an explanatory rather than purely descriptive perspective.
The startup’s product, already undergoing active utilization in 12 of the 100 largest American firms, aims to add value to law firms of assorted sizes with flexible pricing options. In its immediate roadmap, the company seeks to venture into state courts, furthering its current presence in U.S. federal courts.
The return of Ovbiagele to legal tech follows his departure from ROSS Intelligence, a company he co-founded a decade ago, which unfortunately had to terminate operations due to a dispute with legal research giant Thomson Reuters. After recharging for a short while working as a product manager at Coinbase, he’s now back in full action at Bench IQ.
In conclusion, Bench IQ, envisioned as a “legal reconnaissance platform,” has the potential to redefine legal standards with a unique inside view into the legal fraternity. The startup aims to amplify judicial understanding to enhance argument building and achieve desired results from a lawyer’s standpoint. As investors from Maple and Haystack Ventures elucidate, they’re thrilled to be part of Bench IQ’s evolution, leveraging LLMs to tackle deep-seated legal research challenges.