A two-year-old an AI-native law firm startup is making a bid for the name and internal data of a 95-year-old Wall Street law firm.
Crosby made the offer for the trademark, brand and some internal data of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, TechCrunch reported Oct. 30. The data wasn’t specified and terms weren’t disclosed. Less than two weeks later, Weil’s partners voted Tuesday (Nov. 10) to dissolve the firm, Bloomberg Law reported.
The bidder is a fraction of the target’s size. Crosby has raised about $85 million since it launched, according to TechCrunch. Weil brought in more than $2 billion in revenue last year alone, PYMNTS company CPI reported. All the money Crosby has ever raised equals about 4% of what Weil billed in one year.
Unlike most legal AI startups, Crosby does not sell software. It employs lawyers who use AI the company built and sells the finished contract review, TechCrunch reported when the firm launched in 2025. Crosby promised then to review a client contract in under an hour. Co-Founder and CEO Ryan Daniels told TechCrunch at the time that legal review of sales contracts at his previous company was the “reason why we weren’t growing as fast as we wanted to.”
Crosby has not said how it would use Weil’s data. A large firm’s non-client data, such as merger agreement templates and contracts at different stages of negotiation, could be used to tune legal AI systems, The Information reported.
Crosby has not put a firm price on the data, either. Crosby’s offer carries a range of financial terms because it first needs to evaluate the data, Bloomberg Law reported, citing a person familiar with the bid.
Internal Company Data Draws AI Bidders
There have been other instances of business records drawing bidders this year. Google bid $10 million at a bankruptcy auction in August for the internal data of Spirit Airlines, including about 100 million employee emails, PYMNTS reported.
Crosby is not the only AI-native law firm circling Weil. Scissero has submitted an expression of interest in Weil’s technology, intellectual property and data assets, Founder and CEO Mathias Strasser told Artificial Lawyer. “AI-native law firms have an opportunity to fundamentally rethink how legal services are delivered,” Strasser said.
Vetta, an AI-native firm focused on private equity deals, is seeking Weil’s precedents and playbooks, Artificial Lawyer reported in a separate story. Those are the template agreements and negotiating guides a firm builds over decades of deals.
But client confidentiality limits what any buyer can use. A precedent may be usable only if it holds no client information and no details of the past deal, Artificial Lawyer said.
Law Firms Race to Build Their Own AI
Surviving firms are spending to put the same kind of data to work. Large law firms are betting their internal data will set them apart when every firm can buy the same AI tools, Bloomberg Law reported in June.
Kirkland & Ellis, the world’s highest-grossing law firm, has committed $500 million over three to four years to build its own AI platform, Bloomberg Law reported in May. Chairman Jon Ballis told the Financial Times that 180 technology professionals are building it with input from 250 Kirkland lawyers.
A&O Shearman, another major law firm, has committed $1.1 billion over five years to building out AI, the firm said in a release. Every practice will put at least 3% of its time into building AI tools.
Law firms’ corporate clients are moving just as quickly to put AI to work. Eighty-seven percent of corporate legal departments use generative AI, up from 44% in 2025, according to a PYMNTS report in August that cited a FTI Consulting and Relativity survey of 224 chief legal officers. Summarization is the most common use at 83%. Contract clause identification follows at 63%. That is the heart of the contract review Crosby sells.
