The recent acquisition of Lega by BARBRI marked a shift in the strategic trajectory for the AI governance platform. Contrary to initial speculations that Lega might be stepping away from its governance focus, Christian Lang, the founder of Lega, clarified that the platform is merely evolving its role within the legal tech landscape. More details about the strategic transition can be found in the original article.
Lang elaborated that while the governance aspect of Lega won’t disappear, it will serve a more educational purpose. This means the platform will pivot toward enhancing AI fluency rather than merely acting as a tool to build AI solutions. Lang sees the technology as an ideal infrastructure to support AI workshops, hackathons, and innovation labs, as he stated in a recent conversation. The dual architectural nature of Lega, consisting of a ‘lab’ and a ‘gateway’, will play a crucial role in this new strategic direction. Previously centered on governance, the gateway will morph into an analytics tool aimed at understanding user engagement and proficiency levels.
A key shift in Lega’s operation under BARBRI is the focus on what Lang terms as experiential learning. Legal professionals can now expect workshops that resemble ‘high-end cooking classes for AI’, where participants can learn through model-comparison sandboxes, and build working prototypes. Lang emphasized the goal of these workshops is to move beyond basic ‘AI literacy’ to deeper ‘AI fluency’, a concept he feels is crucial for legal professionals to internalize AI applications in their own work environments.
Lang also addressed the broader challenge faced by the legal profession concerning AI adoption, drawing attention to findings from the Thomson Reuters Future of Professionals report. He argues that focusing on traditional tool adoption limits potential growth by preserving outdated pre-AI workflows. Instead, Lang advocates for empowering innovators within firms to rethink service delivery models, linking this innovative spirit to a need for law firms to redefine their product-market fit in an era that demands more nuanced technology adoption.
Looking ahead, Lega, in conjunction with BARBRI, plans to deepen its educational approach, with a focus on AI-fluency workshops for firms and law schools. A potential advisory aspect may also emerge, capitalizing on the strategic insights the platform provides. Lang views this as an opportunity to create meaningful educational bridges between academia and professional practice, embodying both firms’ commitment to advancing AI fluency across the legal landscape.