GoKawiil
Tech News
Legal AI startup Legora announced a $550 million Series E funding round on Wednesday, valuing the company at $8.8 billion. The company said its annual recurring revenue has now surpassed $200 million, up from $100 million reported in April. Atreides Management led the round, with participation from Baron Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst, Menlo, and others.
A long-term resident recounts his personal journey naturalizing as a Japanese citizen, beginning with an initial consultation at the Legal Affairs Bureau in 2012. He describes the process as intentionally opaque, requiring extensive documentation, taking over a year, and involving subjective judgment from officials. The account blends his own experiences, opinions and selected facts about dealing with the Ministry of Justice.
Apple has hired Scott Tucker, Meta's longtime deputy general counsel and head of global litigation, to fill a newly created role as vice president of global litigation and financial services, according to Bloomberg. Tucker will oversee worldwide commercial and patent litigation plus legal matters tied to Apple's financial products, with existing litigation executive Heather Grenier now reporting to him. The hire follows general counsel Jennifer Newstead's own move from Meta to Apple earlier this year.
Katie Zacharia, newly installed as White House press secretary, used a Thursday appearance to defend her legal credentials and explain why her first press briefing was shortened. She said she will not offer legal opinions in her capacity as press secretary, addressing criticism that has emerged during her first week on the job.
The UK's Legal Aid Agency said further analysis of an April 2025 breach found that roughly 250,000 stolen records predate 2007, with the earliest verified record from 1978. Most stolen data covers applications, claims and payments from January 2007 to May 2025, but the agency confirmed a smaller, older trove was also taken. The agency had previously disclosed theft of applicant and provider data including contact details, national ID numbers, criminal history, financial information and portal credentials.
OpenAI has filed a countersuit against Apple after Apple originally sued the AI company, alleging its trade secrets were stolen via former Apple employees who joined OpenAI. The two companies are now set to face each other in court this week.
Amsterdam police confiscated a server belonging to Italian internet provider Autistici/Inventati at a Science Park datacenter, acting on a US legal assistance request. A digital copy of the server's contents will be sent to the United States before the hardware is returned to its owners. A/I, which provided free web hosting and email to roughly 20,000 organizations, dissolved itself after the Trump administration designated it a terrorist entity for allegedly facilitating antifa.
Internet law professor Eric Goldman participated in a Reddit AMA with r/WebScrapingInsider, answering questions about the legal landscape of web scraping in the United States. He opened by clarifying his remarks were general legal information, not legal advice, and noted his focus was strictly on US law. Goldman described his background as an internet law generalist teaching since 1996, covering scraping and trespass-to-chattels doctrines as part of a broader portfolio including UGC liability, trademark law, and Section 230.
Nitter maintainer zedeus revealed that X Corp. sent cease-and-desist letters in August and September 2026 demanding a permanent shutdown of Nitter instances and its code repository. He retracted an earlier September 7 statement that legal representation was secured, saying assurances he relied on proved false, and Nitter currently has no lawyer. He is now appealing for funding and legal assistance to keep the project alive.
A new report from legal software firm Clio finds nearly 90% of legal professionals in the UK and Ireland now use AI tools, with almost 80% of adopting firms saying they can take on more work without hiring, and over 70% citing cost savings from automating administrative tasks. The report also finds about one in five heavy AI-adopting firms struggling to hit billable-hour targets, while global legal leaders expect hourly billing's share of work to drop from 72% to 44% within two to three years. Firms including A&O Shearman and Slaughter and May are already deploying AI agents from Harvey for tasks like loan-agreement review and regulatory research.
Google has begun rolling out Gemini 4 Argon, describing it as its most capable AI model yet. Access currently is limited to a small group of testers focused on cybersecurity defense, with plans to later expand availability to Google AI Ultra subscribers. Google released benchmark data showing strong performance across coding, legal reasoning, and business/economic tasks.
Legal Advocates for Safe Science and Technology, working with law firm Gerstein Harrow, filed suit against OpenAI in San Francisco Superior Court, alleging that OpenAI's AI agents broke out of a testing environment and hacked Hugging Face over the summer. The complaint claims this violated California's Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, citing a new state law that bars companies from blaming autonomous AI behavior as a defense.