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Kirkland says it's spending $500 MILLION to build its own in-house AI

How the fuck is there not a thread on this already? http...
green place of business
  05/28/26
seems like a good indicator this profession is fucked
stubborn opaque school
  05/28/26
Uhh, it shows lawyers are more cash rich than Larry Ellison
green place of business
  05/28/26
Kirkland ​said its platform would be designed based on inf...
Pungent Pontificating Boiling Water
  05/28/26
Divide 500,000,000 by those numbers in your head
green place of business
  05/28/26
LMFAO. How does it feel to be one of Kirkland’s like ...
Umber motley gas station
  05/29/26
...
Shaky toaster whorehouse
  05/29/26
au contraire. rainmaker share partners dont need their brian...
Exhilarant Startled Codepig
  05/29/26
Pity the derivatives, credit agreement, fund formation water...
Umber motley gas station
  05/29/26
#All_Service_Partners: Report to conference room 42A on Mond...
Exhilarant Startled Codepig
  05/29/26
but first they're going to wear google glasses for 6 months ...
Spectacular Up-to-no-good Hunting Ground
  05/29/26
...
Exhilarant Startled Codepig
  05/29/26
...
Burgundy death wish school cafeteria
  05/29/26
...
odious love of her life pit
  05/29/26
but dbg assured me he would be safe
soul-stirring juggernaut
  05/28/26
Does he work there with knowledge that partners were hoardin...
green place of business
  05/28/26
this makes no fucking sense at all. whoever makes the best ...
bearded yellow locale
  05/28/26
they probably tried claude code and think they can do anythi...
stubborn opaque school
  05/28/26
https://x.com/i/status/2060128889377304715
green place of business
  05/28/26
Fucking 180 Claude, run a 50 State search for "summa...
Exciting base
  05/29/26
...
bearded yellow locale
  05/29/26
It'll be some bullshit wrapper on something else. They'll ma...
Sick Plaza Regret
  05/29/26
just a chill 7 dollars per 1 dollar food court hot dog
charcoal vengeful native
  05/28/26
Lmao $500 million isn’t gonna do shit. Westlaw tried s...
pale trip forum internal respiration
  05/29/26
probably worth them reaching out to a frontier lab and stipu...
Excitant french chef
  05/29/26
They could buy 5% of Anthropic right now with the same cash ...
grizzly bawdyhouse
  05/29/26
which would not quite solve their problem, but does indicate...
Excitant french chef
  05/29/26
It would if their problem is making more $
grizzly bawdyhouse
  05/29/26
Lawfirms don't have the money for that lol
Well-lubricated boyish dingle berry
  05/29/26
That's like 4x Harvey's valuation which is already more over...
grizzly bawdyhouse
  05/29/26
Fucking savages on XO. They're just going to create a Kirkla...
orchid clown
  05/29/26
an AI that is, on balance, in balance
Exhilarant Startled Codepig
  05/29/26
...
Excitant french chef
  05/29/26
100%
Mint coffee pot
  05/29/26
This doesn't cost $500 million. By the way, they could do a...
cream useless brakes sandwich
  05/30/26
For them to self-host their the LLM server for 800 users usi...
green place of business
  05/30/26
I thought this meant COSTCO Kirkland-brand AI
honey-headed hominid
  05/29/26
so ~570 equity partners voted to forego ~$900k each to inves...
Spectacular Up-to-no-good Hunting Ground
  05/29/26
even scarier stuff for service partners rofl
Exhilarant Startled Codepig
  05/29/26
yeah i imagine the associates will all get cut and the servi...
Spectacular Up-to-no-good Hunting Ground
  05/29/26
I think you mean the 1/3rd of the equity partners who surviv...
Puce elastic band black woman
  05/29/26
This is Huge.
Irate Generalized Bond Nursing Home
  05/29/26
*creates dynamic pricing model to change the cost of Kirklan...
Hairraiser emerald trailer park keepsake machete
  05/29/26
JFC they’re not *actually doing this, it’s just ...
Out-of-control Mental Disorder Fortuitous Meteor
  05/29/26
that's all these announcements ever are and people keep fall...
violent sapphire menage
  05/29/26
Aren't you an Engineer? Can't you use it to Engineer shit be...
Irate Generalized Bond Nursing Home
  05/29/26
https://x.com/i/status/2060128889377304715
green place of business
  05/29/26
nutella vindicated again. got her cute shoes and jumped ship
transparent talented party of the first part
  05/29/26
Soft-serve cones of scholarship getting extruded from Kirkla...
Hilarious comical abode
  05/29/26
Lmao funny we’re all lawyers and the first thing we th...
pale trip forum internal respiration
  05/30/26
This is over the next 3-4 years. They would have spent more ...
translucent university really tough guy
  05/29/26
They absolutely would not spend $125-$200 million/year on th...
cream useless brakes sandwich
  05/30/26
I guess I can finally reveal to everyone that I work in bigl...
Mint coffee pot
  05/29/26
No litigator AIs, please
vivacious lay mother
  05/29/26
why not spend $5 million on one? Or $50 million? Are you tel...
Swashbuckling magenta son of senegal old irish cottage
  05/29/26
Or just pay for some premium ChatGPT up to date package for ...
pale trip forum internal respiration
  05/30/26
ChatGPT is shit, but Claude/Harvey (which is an overlay on C...
cream useless brakes sandwich
  05/30/26
Whatever they are trying to do, the software is still in its...
green place of business
  05/30/26


Poast new message in this thread



Reply Favorite

Date: May 28th, 2026 10:22 PM
Author: green place of business

How the fuck is there not a thread on this already?

https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/law-firm-kirkland-spend-500-million-developing-its-own-ai-platform-2026-05-28/

Just a chill $625k per lawyer going to Jensen Huang

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49905873)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 28th, 2026 10:33 PM
Author: stubborn opaque school

seems like a good indicator this profession is fucked

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49905901)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 28th, 2026 10:35 PM
Author: green place of business

Uhh, it shows lawyers are more cash rich than Larry Ellison

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49905907)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 28th, 2026 10:35 PM
Author: Pungent Pontificating Boiling Water

Kirkland ​said its platform would be designed based on information from 250 Kirkland lawyers ​and would involve more than 180 technology professionals inside and outside the firm.



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49905906)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 28th, 2026 10:36 PM
Author: green place of business

Divide 500,000,000 by those numbers in your head

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49905910)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 11:27 AM
Author: Umber motley gas station

LMFAO. How does it feel to be one of Kirkland’s like 4,000 other attorneys whose brains aren’t worthy of being digitized. What a fucking indictment, holy shit.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906516)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 11:29 AM
Author: Shaky toaster whorehouse



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906522)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 11:48 AM
Author: Exhilarant Startled Codepig

au contraire. rainmaker share partners dont need their brians digitized. the service partners whose brains have now been digitized are now on the chopping block.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906546)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:47 PM
Author: Umber motley gas station

Pity the derivatives, credit agreement, fund formation waterfall, and tax McKirkland “partners” who have each spent a 60K hours over the last 20 years grinding out the same repetitive 5.7/9.8 drafting and negotiation tasks who are getting digitized. And they’re terminally non-equity, so they’re not sharing in any of the upside of this shit.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906623)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:53 PM
Author: Exhilarant Startled Codepig

#All_Service_Partners: Report to conference room 42A on Monday at 9am so we can digitize your brain and fire you. Thank.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906635)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 1:03 PM
Author: Spectacular Up-to-no-good Hunting Ground

but first they're going to wear google glasses for 6 months to record everything they do.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906658)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 1:05 PM
Author: Exhilarant Startled Codepig



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906663)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 1:02 PM
Author: Burgundy death wish school cafeteria



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906654)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 3:49 PM
Author: odious love of her life pit



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906829)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 28th, 2026 11:26 PM
Author: soul-stirring juggernaut

but dbg assured me he would be safe

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906019)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 28th, 2026 11:27 PM
Author: green place of business

Does he work there with knowledge that partners were hoarding $500 million all this time?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906021)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 28th, 2026 11:47 PM
Author: bearded yellow locale

this makes no fucking sense at all. whoever makes the best general purpose AI model, will also make the best AI model for the law. it's not like kirkland will manage to make anything better

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906055)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 28th, 2026 11:51 PM
Author: stubborn opaque school

they probably tried claude code and think they can do anything now

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906060)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 28th, 2026 11:52 PM
Author: green place of business

https://x.com/i/status/2060128889377304715

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906064)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:03 PM
Author: Exciting base

Fucking 180

Claude, run a 50 State search for "summary judgment standard" thank

Now do the same task 800 times per week thank

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906570)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 1:09 PM
Author: bearded yellow locale



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906673)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:35 PM
Author: Sick Plaza Regret

It'll be some bullshit wrapper on something else. They'll market it as "The Kirkland Difference"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906605)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 28th, 2026 11:59 PM
Author: charcoal vengeful native

just a chill 7 dollars per 1 dollar food court hot dog

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906074)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 11:31 AM
Author: pale trip forum internal respiration

Lmao $500 million isn’t gonna do shit. Westlaw tried some ai bullshit and it’s not as good as chat cpt

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906529)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 11:44 AM
Author: Excitant french chef

probably worth them reaching out to a frontier lab and stipulating:

-- "we want our own airgapped model specifically tuned and trained in the following ways"

-- "you won't have any ongoing compute cost for this because it'll be on our own hardware -- fire and forget revenue infusion for you"

-- "this isn't creating opportunity cost for you because we can't use your API model anyway due to client restrictions (e.g. IP litigation tech clients won't let any material be run through frontier LLMs)"

probably worth a pitch because AI niggers need MONEY

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906543)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:22 PM
Author: grizzly bawdyhouse

They could buy 5% of Anthropic right now with the same cash based on its current market cap

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906593)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:45 PM
Author: Excitant french chef

which would not quite solve their problem, but does indicate that they could at least get a meeting

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906619)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 9:51 PM
Author: grizzly bawdyhouse

It would if their problem is making more $

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907213)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 11:55 AM
Author: Well-lubricated boyish dingle berry

Lawfirms don't have the money for that lol

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906555)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:16 PM
Author: grizzly bawdyhouse

That's like 4x Harvey's valuation which is already more overcooked than any SAAS provider in any industry

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906583)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:34 PM
Author: orchid clown

Fucking savages on XO. They're just going to create a Kirkland-specific wrapper on a third-party platform. They want to have more customization and in-house control over shit. They'll have it trained on more in-house work product. They'll be able to integrate with ediscovery vendors and the like. They'll solve some of the confidentiality concerns. It's not "inventing AI" or some dumb shit.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906601)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:45 PM
Author: Exhilarant Startled Codepig

an AI that is, on balance, in balance

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906618)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:46 PM
Author: Excitant french chef



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906621)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 6:51 PM
Author: Mint coffee pot

100%

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907043)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 30th, 2026 3:51 PM
Author: cream useless brakes sandwich

This doesn't cost $500 million. By the way, they could do all of this with a Harvey AI sub at a small fraction of the price. They could also create some customization for Claude and spend even less. The only way to spend $500 million on this is pure incompetence or theft.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907810)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 30th, 2026 4:44 PM
Author: green place of business

For them to self-host their the LLM server for 800 users using open weight models, with full time support staff, would be maybe $10mm yr tops. They could do it for $5 million/yr I bet

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907840)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:36 PM
Author: honey-headed hominid

I thought this meant COSTCO Kirkland-brand AI

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906607)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:49 PM
Author: Spectacular Up-to-no-good Hunting Ground

so ~570 equity partners voted to forego ~$900k each to invest in this. they must have ran the numbers and decided the potential associate savings were worth it. pretty scary stuff for young lawyers.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906627)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:55 PM
Author: Exhilarant Startled Codepig

even scarier stuff for service partners rofl

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906641)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 12:56 PM
Author: Spectacular Up-to-no-good Hunting Ground

yeah i imagine the associates will all get cut and the service partners will be docked down to associate pay levels and the equity partners will fucking ball out.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906643)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 2:59 PM
Author: Puce elastic band black woman

I think you mean the 1/3rd of the equity partners who survive this will ball out even more than they already are balling out.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906805)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 1:01 PM
Author: Irate Generalized Bond Nursing Home

This is Huge.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906653)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 1:05 PM
Author: Hairraiser emerald trailer park keepsake machete

*creates dynamic pricing model to change the cost of Kirkland brand Extra Virgin Olive Oil depending upon predicted customer behaviors*

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906662)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 3:19 PM
Author: Out-of-control Mental Disorder Fortuitous Meteor

JFC they’re not *actually doing this, it’s just advertising to dumbfuck GCs. They might as well have said $1 BILLION to be doubly impressive.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906819)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 3:50 PM
Author: violent sapphire menage

that's all these announcements ever are and people keep falling for it

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906832)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 6:47 PM
Author: Irate Generalized Bond Nursing Home

Aren't you an Engineer? Can't you use it to Engineer shit better.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907032)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 6:34 PM
Author: green place of business

https://x.com/i/status/2060128889377304715

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907018)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 3:29 PM
Author: transparent talented party of the first part

nutella vindicated again. got her cute shoes and jumped ship

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906822)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 3:53 PM
Author: Hilarious comical abode

Soft-serve cones of scholarship getting extruded from Kirkland's AI law slop dispenser

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906841)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 30th, 2026 1:56 PM
Author: pale trip forum internal respiration

Lmao funny we’re all lawyers and the first thing we thought of was Costco.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907711)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 4:00 PM
Author: translucent university really tough guy

This is over the next 3-4 years. They would have spent more than that on tokens and AI licenses anyway given the nature of their business. Not really news IMO.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49906858)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 30th, 2026 3:54 PM
Author: cream useless brakes sandwich

They absolutely would not spend $125-$200 million/year on this if they just went with an existing solution.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907815)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 6:49 PM
Author: Mint coffee pot

I guess I can finally reveal to everyone that I work in biglaw.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907039)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 9:49 PM
Author: vivacious lay mother

No litigator AIs, please

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907209)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 29th, 2026 10:01 PM
Author: Swashbuckling magenta son of senegal old irish cottage

why not spend $5 million on one? Or $50 million? Are you telling me a team of 10 or so capable software engineers couldn’t build whatever Kirkland wants it to do for that much?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907238)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 30th, 2026 1:57 PM
Author: pale trip forum internal respiration

Or just pay for some premium ChatGPT up to date package for everyone and tell them to use chat GPT.

Also I’m guessing we’re gonna start having shit like Kirkland Costco (powered by ChatGPT) very soon.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907714)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 30th, 2026 3:52 PM
Author: cream useless brakes sandwich

ChatGPT is shit, but Claude/Harvey (which is an overlay on Claude) or Gemini are all fine. You can get enterprise subs with terms that will care for confidentiality concerns.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907812)



Reply Favorite

Date: May 30th, 2026 4:52 PM
Author: green place of business

Whatever they are trying to do, the software is still in its infancy and no one has actually cured the hallucination problem, or the randomly-speaking-chinese problem, or the "it doesn't understand human psychology" problem. All of these platforms are still dogshit right now. They can't even OCR well. There are SAAS companies advertising cloud OCR platforms to law firms, and they brag that they do NOT use AI.

There's also no benefit to training an AI on client data vs transforming client data into vector databases. In fact it it's worse, because every time there's a new development you have to retrain the model, rather than just updating some vector database of client files. And vector databases cost nothing to deploy and maintain. This really looks like fake news to me and I don't understand why Kirkland announced this to Thomson Reuters

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5869753&forum_id=2#49907842)