A recent funding announcement in the legal technology space caught my attention. Even untilwhich provides several AI tools for personal injury (PI) plaintiff attorneys, announcement it had raised $150 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and REV, among others. REV is the venture capital arm of RELX which owns LexisNexis. With this funding, EvenUp is now valued at $2 billion.
This isn’t just another big funding round. This indicates that AI for plaintiffs’ attorneys may have reached a tipping point and is now a significant market.
What is EvenUp?
EvenUp provides all kinds of AI-powered tools to help PI attorneys, who are primarily paid on a contingency fee basis, effectively draft, review and strategize throughout the case lifecycle, according to the press release announcing the funding.
He is trained on thousands of IP cases and millions of medical records (more information below). According to Rami KarabibarCEO and co-founder of EvenUp, “Legal AI is no longer a side bet; it is becoming the backbone of personal injury law.”
He’s right about that
I think Karabibar is right for several reasons. First, AI tools allow IP lawyers to complete tasks in a fraction of the time it previously took them. Since they spend less time building a deal, their profits are increased. These guys don’t charge by the hour. They are paid based on results. The less time it takes to get to the result, the more money they make.
Second, because they can do things with EvenUp in less time, IP lawyers can take on cases that previously would not have been profitable because the time required to process the case would exceed the predictable recovery. This means better access to justice for people who may be injured. Raymond Mieszaniecco-founder of EvenUp and its COO, puts it this way: “Our mission remains simple: to give every victim a fair chance to obtain justice. »
Finally, one of the main needs of IP lawyers is to reach a resolution as quickly as possible. For what? They don’t get paid until the case is resolved. The EvenUp team understands this and has created tools to speed up work and indirectly lead to faster resolutions.
SO???
So what’s the problem? Lots of big funding announcements these days. Here’s why this resonates with me as a former defense attorney.
I first discovered EvenUp in ILTA’s Startup Alley in 2023 and wrote about the company then. I heard a young person talking at the startup stage about a tool that would automate the drafting of formal notices for IP lawyers.
My first reaction was ho-hum, that doesn’t seem like a big deal. But then I talked to him. It turns out that the young man’s name was Mieszaniec. He was inspired to start the company by the frustrating experience of a family member trying to recover from a personal injury. This experience became a driving force and passion that still drives many product decisions.
What Mieszaniec and EvenUp were already doing back then was much more significant and a harbinger of things to come: they were using AI to determine valid and justifiable requests. It worked like this: An attorney would provide EvenUp with all the relevant facts of a case, along with medical and employment records, and any other important information. Using AI and data analysis, EvenUp would compare these facts to verdicts and other information. (More on that in a moment.) The tool then provided a realistic demand figure backed by data.
The product could also review medical records and other documents for inconsistencies and missing information.
The key innovation: participatory data
But what really caught my attention was that Mieszaniec convinced a number of plaintiffs’ attorneys to provide EvenUp with anonymous access to actual settlement numbers in PI cases. The program examined not only actual verdicts in cases with comparable factual characteristics, but also settlements in cases with similar factual characteristics. Since most cases, past and present, are settled, getting this information in this way was truly innovative at the time.
I saw that this tool and this type of thinking could provide a lot of value, not only for the plaintiffs’ lawyers but also for the defense. As I noted at the timethis capacity could improve settlements since it would give both parties access to good case evaluations. This would allow insurance companies, which typically insure defendants in personal injury cases, to better determine reserves for the exposures presented by the cases.
The business model of insurance companies is based on the ability to accurately determine risks and then set aside the funds necessary to pay for those risks. So the sooner they can get their hands on the information needed to establish this reserve, the sooner they can discuss a settlement. Since EvenUp’s analysis was based on real data, I believed it would provide the type of accurate demand that would help adjusters establish reserves and lead to faster settlements, which would benefit everyone.
Mieszaniec also recognized at the time that the key to all of this was building trust. All parties should know that the EvenUp number is good and well supported.
I concluded when speaking to him in 2023 that “EvenUp has a pretty cool idea.”
So how did it go?
Not surprisingly, since the founders clearly understood how PI cases work and the dynamics leading to their resolution, EvenUp has grown by leaps and bounds. It now offers a range of products, including drafting tools, the ability to create expedited requests, medical timeline tools, workflow processes, an AI assistant for responding to inquiries, a case and strategy preparation tool, a negotiation preparation tool, a case settlement and similar outcomes repository, and even a business performance management tool.
EvenUp also recently announced something called Mirror mode which allows lawyers to create documents in an author’s or firm’s previous language, style and structure by mirroring those previously created documents. As Mieszaniec says: “We started by transforming the way applications were developed; today, our AI covers the entire life cycle of files. »
The beauty of what EvenUp does
EvenUp’s approach improves the ability of individual users, who often work at small businesses, to leverage data from other plaintiffs’ IP attorneys. This allows them to better litigate with large corporations and better compete with very large national corporate plaintiffs.
It’s also a good example of what can happen when a legal tech company is founded by people with passion and experience in a field. Yes, the founders are zealous about the plaintiffs’ IP work and the attorneys involved. But they also understand the need to resolve these cases quickly and efficiently. And that means thinking about the needs not only of plaintiffs but also of the defense.
Of course, the usual concerns about AI tools remain: algorithmic bias, data privacy, and, for EvenUp, whether its tools will further burden the justice system.
But for now, congratulations to EvenUp on its impressive journey from startup to a $2 billion valuation.
Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger and writer. He publishes Carrefour TechLawa blog dedicated to examining the tension between technology, law and the practice of law.
