Legal tech startup Responsiv is bringing AI to in-house attorneys to help them save time and money. It just raised $3 million from Greylock.

• Legal technology startup Responsiv is bringing artificial intelligence to in-house counsel.
• The company was founded by two alumni of the legal technology powerhouse Relativity.
• Greylock Partners provided a $3 million pre-seed round to Responsiv.

Lawyers face numerous pitfalls when considering using AI in their work, from being duped by ChatGPT to putting sensitive client data at risk. However, by developing a program with “guardrails,” a new legal tech firm is attempting to bring all of the benefits of artificial intelligence to companies’ in-house legal teams while minimizing the risks.

Responsiv recently received $3 million in pre-seed funding from Greylock Partners, led by general partner Mike Duboe.

Responsiv, based in Chicago, is an AI assistant for in-house legal teams. Nikita Solilov and Jordan Domash founded it earlier this year after working for more than a decade at legal tech powerhouse Relativity — a company valued at more than $3 billion by its largest shareholder, private-equity firm Silver Lake.

“Jordan and Nikita are thoughtful and strategic, with deep empathy for the problem and expertise in the space, which is just the kind of team we love to back at Greylock,” Duboe said in an e-mail.

According to Domash, generative AI programs such as ChatGPT are not a good solution for lawyers because they can provide incorrect or out-of-date information. Responsiv, on the other hand, was created specifically for in-house attorneys and generates accurate legal information complete with citations so that lawyers can jump into a referenced case and see the data for themselves.

“We exist because ChatGPT is a problem,” he explained to Insider.

Responsiv is designed for in-house attorneys whose daily tasks may include employment issues, mergers and acquisitions, contracts, policy drafting, and more. As they work through a variety of tasks and require assistance understanding a topic, these lawyers used to have to spend hours researching or calling outside counsel for assistance – many of whom charge hundreds of dollars per hour.

With Responsiv, in-house counsel can quickly obtain verifiable answers to legal questions, saving companies time and money.

“These tools can make our customers far more productive, and in-house attorneys will be able to do more themselves,” Domash went on to say. “Our customers will think twice before hiring outside counsel and spending $50,000 to answer a legal question.” We’ll always have lawyers on hand for advice, but this is a good solution for practical, day-to-day issues.”

Domash added that Responsiv is unique in that it is one of the few startups in the legal tech industry — which, according to Spherical Insights, is expected to grow to more than $56 billion in 2032 — that caters to in-house attorneys rather than lawyers at large law firms.

“There’s a noticeable gap in innovation tailored specifically to in-house legal teams,” Domash told me.

According to Crunchbase, funding for legal tech has decreased in 2023, but many startups in the space focus on law firms. EvenUp, which helps personal injury firms automate workflows, raised $50 million this spring, while Darrow, which uses artificial intelligence to help lawyers find class-action lawsuits, raised $35 million last month.

Responsiv will focus on expanding its engineering team and hiring additional AI experts in the coming months, according to Domash. The startup will also continue to improve its validation path — the mechanism that allows lawyers to easily check the accuracy of the information provided by AI.