Why we invested in PointOne
PointOne is taking a contrarian approach to generative AI in the legal profession: help attorneys bill even more.
We're excited to announce our partnership and investment in PointOne: a vertically integrated legal technology platform that leverages generative artificial intelligence to automate legal time sheets, invoices, and predictive billing. Rather than employing AI to reduce our dependency on lawyers, PointOne is using this emerging technology to help attorneys automate time sheets and, as a result, bill their clients even more. Targeting a market worth over $10 billion USD and growing at 12% CAGR, PointOne has raised over $3.2 million USD in seed financing. We joined this round alongside Bessemer Venture Partners, 8VC, and General Catalyst.
A long list of emerging companies are seeking to replace attorneys with generative AI. The paradox, of course, is that these same platforms have to sell their products to attorneys themselves. The perceived threat to the profession — and the fear amongst attorneys of a long, slow transformation — cannot be understated, especially in the context of how lawyers become, well, lawyers.
When graduating law school and joining a practice, the single most important metric for making partner is a young attorney's contribution of billable hours. Sorry, but that's really it. Given the entrenched incentives of the profession, any potential disruption to this process is likely to be greeted with hesitation, if not outright hostility.
Rather than seek to immediately disrupt this system, PointOne aligns incentives — employing AI to augment attorneys' ability to bill more and save time. PointOne ingests client communications and information from laptop and mobile, then interprets time sheets on a customized basis, under the structure and billing format of each independent firm. PointOne saves attorneys up to 20% of the total work time they normally spend on time sheets.
Critically, while we don't believe one strategy for AI in law is guaranteed to win or lose, we do believe the question of market timing favors PointOne — generational shifts in legal practice often take just that: generations.
PointOne's team is led by founder and CEO Adrian Parlow, a former corporate lawyer at Fenwick & West and the former General Counsel of WeFunder, surrounded by leaders from across the legal and technology space as the company rapidly scales.
We are excited to take this journey with PointOne and watch as the team modernizes one of the world's oldest professions.