Latest news with #Abramowitz
Business Insider
12-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
A consultant who helps law firms decide which software to buy explains why legal tech is in trouble
The legal tech boom is reaching new heights. And just like that, a few investors and consultants are starting to whisper, "Bubble." With a rush of funding deals, two unicorns born since ChatGPT's pivotal launch, and a rare Big Law acquisition of a startup, legal tech is undergoing a transformation. Once dismissed to back-office use, it's now grabbing the attention of top tech talent and investors, eager to capitalize on the potential of generative artificial intelligence in the legal field. This has raised some concern among industry watchers, like Zach Abramowitz, a former lawyer and entrepreneur, who now runs Killer Whale Strategies, a consulting boutique that helps law firms and legal departments decide which software products to buy. He's among those warning that a surge in legal tech revenue may be a sign of an impending bubble. He says nearly every law firm is testing out competing legal tech products. This spree of paid trials is boosting the revenues of legal software companies, which in turn is driving up their valuations from venture capitalists. Abramowitz said the question is how "sticky" that revenue is. "It's getting booked like recurring revenue," he said, "but the reality is it's still mostly pilot programs." He knows of law firms that have shelled out for hundreds of licenses to products like Harvey and others. In some cases, Harvey is emerging as a winner, but Abramowitz isn't convinced it's locked in as reliable, long-term revenue. In the next 12 to 18 months, law firms will decide which vendors to commit to long-term, meaning they'll roll out solutions across their entire organization or sign multi-year contracts, Abramowitz said. He said the legal industry will rally around the top tech performers, while other vendors will watch their revenues decline. A "reckoning" on the horizon Fears of a legal tech bubble are echoing across the venture industry. This past February, Rick Zullo, a seasoned software investor, shared a conversation he had with another investor about legal tech on Turner Novak's podcast, "The Peel." "They said, 'Rick, every single one of these companies is working.' If every single company in a category is working, that's probably the scariest thing that could happen," Zullo told Novak, "because that just means that there's no alpha in the company that you're generating." Jake Saper, a general partner at Emergence Capital, described an exciting yet unsettling landscape. On the "Pearls Off, Gloves Off" podcast hosted by Goodwin's chief operating officer, Mary O'Carroll, Saper said that with the rapid adoption of legal tech, law firms are starting to realize that some products aren't living up to expectations. In some cases, only a small percentage of firm users are engaging with the tools. Other times, the tools aren't delivering their promised value. Saper warned that a frothy legal tech industry is heading toward a "reckoning," which he expects to intensify later this year. 800-pound gorilla Long sales cycles and customer churn already put a significant strain on the legal tech market. Add in the constant looming threat of getting steamrolled by OpenAI, as Abramowitz puts it, and the conditions spell trouble for the industry. Barely a month goes by without another story of a lawyer citing fake case law generated by ChatGPT. Yet, many lawyers are choosing the chatbot over specialized tools from legal software vendors, survey data shows. Law360 Pulse asked 390 lawyers between November 2024 and January 2025 which generative AI tools they used at work, for either legal or other tasks, excluding e-discovery. Sixty-two percent of respondents answered ChatGPT, more than twice the share of respondents who said LexisNexis or Microsoft Copilot. Abramowitz said the "single best legal research tool on the market" isn't a legal tech tool at all: it's ChatGPT's deep research mode, a web-based research capability utilizing advanced automation. He shared a conversation with one attorney who believed many associates at their firm are likely using the chatbot, even though the firm doesn't pay for it. The attorney noticed their writing improved, seemingly without explanation. "My guess is that more lawyers have probably saved nights and weekends by being able to use these tools," Abramowitz said. "It doesn't require putting in any secure, confidential information: you're just doing research." "How is the firm supposed to stop you from using deep research?" he asked. The future of the legal tech market may depend on it.
Irish Independent
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Louis Theroux: The Settlers review – Documentary paints a grim picture of life in the West Bank
Back in the 1990s, he specialised in knowing winks to camera, deploying a mixture of charm and carefully calibrated haplessness to gain the confidence of his subjects. Usually, these weren't particularly serious people – but even if they were, he tended to undermine them by accentuating their absurdity. White supremacists, for example, or Christian nationalists, weren't seen as much more than fodder for mockery back then. So much for those innocent, flippant times: Theroux is older and wiser and, in any case, has been hunting for bigger game for some years now. He first visited Israeli settlers in the Palestinian West Bank back in 2011. Even then, it wasn't a situation that invited levity in any way. His return in BBC Two's Louis Theroux: The Settlers uncovers an even bleaker modern reality. A decade and a half ago, the people he met felt like outliers. His original documentary was called Ultra Zionists, a title that told its own story. Now, this once-fringe group are represented at the very heart of the Israeli government: Israel's current minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is seen on a stage during this film, whipping up the crowd. In the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, this is their time. 'Welcome to Judea,' says settler Ari Abramowitz when Theroux arrives at his home. Abramowitz's abode is illegal under international law – he's armed to the teeth, and these settlements (essentially residential incursions into Palestinian territory) are guarded by the Israeli army in defiance of the law. What emerges is an ideology of closed loops. 'Where is the nearest Palestinian town?' asks Theroux. 'I'm so uncomfortable using that word,' Abramowitz replies, objecting to the descriptor 'Palestinian'. 'I don't think they exist as a real nation, with a real claim to this land.' He sees himself as 'the tip of the spear... defending the entire Western world'. The land, he believes, belongs to Israel. His proof is the Bible – a document that, as Theroux points out, is essentially regarded as a land deed by the settlers. Abramowitz, incidentally, hails originally from Texas. Everywhere Theroux goes, he bumps up against the same brick wall. 'The land is ours. Palestine doesn't exist. It's not a matter for debate' This rigidity eventually causes a narrative problem for the documentary. Everywhere Theroux goes, he bumps up against the same brick wall. 'The land is ours. Palestine doesn't exist. It's not a matter for debate.' Accordingly, the film isn't really packed with an escalating series of revelations, just an escalating sense of futility, as the same arguments are repeated almost ritualistically. The rigidity is the point. Still, even unconsciously, plenty of issues are clarified. Daniella Weiss, the 79-year-old known as the 'godmother' of the settler movement, is clear about where she stands in relation to the Israeli government. 'Netanyahu... is very happy about what we do here. But he cannot say it.' Essentially, she's confirming the existence of a state agenda that runs contrary to the Geneva Conventions. But sadly, the world doesn't currently seem interested in intervening. Theroux's implicit message here is essentially moderate and compromising. He posits a two-state solution and asks the settlers he meets whether it concerns them that the level of threat they evidently feel might be shared by the people they regard as mortal enemies. Again, he hits a revealing blankness – the lack of concern for Palestinian civilians is as absolute as the scorn for international law. Often, this manifests as a sort of deadly, weaponised pettiness. A group of Palestinians harvesting olives are menaced by a group of heavily armed IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers. Theroux meets Issa, a Palestinian man who gives him a guided tour of Hebron. Everything is closed. It's an impossible maze of checkpoints. IDF soldiers are everywhere, checking papers, obstructing movement, proscribing free will. There's clearly a tactic of making life impossible in a practical sense, in the hope that Palestinians will leave out of sheer despair. And many have. Towards the end of the film, Theroux stops at a West Bank checkpoint and a soldier asks him how long he intends to stay in Israel. It feels like a Freudian slip: does this representative of Israeli state power already consider the acquisition, occupation and incorporation of this land a done deal? He's now added seriousness – and even, at times, a degree of physical bravery And the realisation occurs that eliciting these tiny moments of accidental honesty is still Theroux's biggest strength as an interviewer. People don't feel threatened by him. They're inclined to open up. At the beginning of his career, he often deployed this skill in the service of frivolity. He's now added seriousness – and even, at times, a degree of physical bravery. He's been criticised in some quarters for platforming this particular strain of extremism, but no one is getting off the hook here – and, in fact, challenging people who seem beyond the pale is hardly unfamiliar territory for Theroux. Arguably, given that the situation he's examining feels like an endlessly repeating horror show, it becomes all the more important that documentary makers find a way in. For all the familiarity of his techniques – and even if his subjects seem tragically stuck – Louis Theroux continues to evolve. Rating: Four stars © UK Independent
Telegraph
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Louis Theroux's settler documentary shows only half the story
In his latest documentary, The Settlers, Louis Theroux meets Ari Abramowitz, an Israeli settler living in the West Bank. Wide-eyed Theroux asks Abramowitz if he's holding a gun 'for effect'. 'No', Ari responds. 'I wear it for protection.' Israeli settlements, to clarify, are Jewish villages (mainly in the West Bank) that were set up beyond Israel's internationally recognised borders following the Arab-Israeli war in 1967. I was born and raised in one such village not far from where Abramowitz lives, called Kfar Adumim. I lived with constant fear throughout my childhood, frightened that a terrorist might emerge from the valley below our home and slaughter my family in our sleep. That fear was not a product of my imagination. When I was a teenager, Hagit, a 23-year-old woman from my village, was swimming in a natural pool in the nearby valley with her friend when the pair were stabbed to death by a Palestinian attacker. Thousands of Israeli civilians like Hagit have lost their lives to similar attacks over the years: some blown up in buses, others shot and rammed by cars. My mother — the daughter of a Jewish refugee family from Baghdad — always slept with a pistol under her pillow. It was not an act of bravado but a matter of keeping us safe. I wonder whether Theroux would think my mother did it just 'for effect' too. Journalists have a duty to gather evidence and share knowledge responsibly when the public relies on their reporting. But The Settlers fails on all counts. Let me explain why. Firstly, Theroux says that violence committed by settlers is often framed by them as a reaction to Palestinian violence, which he claims is 'much less frequent' than the former. But this is false. Palestinian attacks against Israelis are far more common than the inverse. According to data from the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, in 2024 alone, Palestinians carried out 6,828 attacks against Israelis – twice that of the previous year (excluding the October 7 massacre). In contrast, there were 673 attacks against Palestinians committed by Israelis in 2024, according to Israeli Defence Force (IDF) statistics. If you adjust these numbers relative to the population size, it means that last year Palestinians committed between around two and three times more attacks than Israelis (depending on which population estimate is used). Hardly 'much less frequent'. Then there's the problem of who Theroux chooses to interview. The only Israeli settlers we meet are the most ideological, many of which are militant, foreign-born outsiders. The Palestinians Theroux interviews however are the opposite: like Issa Amro, a moderate non-violent Palestinian activist from Hebron. This characterisation of Jewish settlers didn't resonate with my experience. Like many of my friends, my mother made it clear I had to be respectful of our Palestinians neighbours. 'Respectful and prudent' she would repeat. Nowhere in my education nor in our community we were taught to disrespect, let alone harass, Palestinians. Even today, a vast majority of those living in the West Bank say they would not move to Jewish settlements if built in Gaza. Theroux's film also leaves out the key historical context which explains why the West Bank is governed in the way it is. Checkpoints, for instance, were built because of a wave of violent attacks by Palestinians travelling into Israeli cities between 2000 and 2002 known as the second intifada. In 2023, many Palestinian stabbing plots were thwarted only because knives were found on the people intending to carry them out as they passed through checkpoints into Israel. Let's be very clear. Every single attack directed at civilians whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis is criminal, immoral and unjustified. Our community must do better to address the root causes of this shameful violence as these are not our values. Settler extremists do not act in our name. But this simplistic worldview — in which the Israelis are oppressors and Palestinians the weak oppressed – is plain wrong. The reality is far more complex.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Louis Theroux's settler documentary shows only half the story
In his latest documentary, The Settlers, Louis Theroux meets Ari Abramowitz, an Israeli settler living in the West Bank. Wide-eyed Theroux asks Abramowitz if he's holding a gun 'for effect'. 'No', Ari responds. 'I wear it for protection.' Israeli settlements, to clarify, are Jewish villages (mainly in the West Bank) that were set up beyond Israel's internationally recognised borders following the Arab-Israeli war in 1967. I was born and raised in one such village not far from where Abramowitz lives, called Kfar Adumim. I lived with constant fear throughout my childhood, frightened that a terrorist might emerge from the valley below our home and slaughter my family in our sleep. That fear was not a product of my imagination. When I was a teenager, Hagit, a 23-year-old woman from my village, was swimming in a natural pool in the nearby valley with her friend when the pair were stabbed to death by a Palestinian attacker. Thousands of Israeli civilians like Hagit have lost their lives to similar attacks over the years: some blown up in buses, others shot and rammed by cars. My mother — the daughter of a Jewish refugee family from Baghdad — always slept with a pistol under her pillow. It was not an act of bravado but a matter of keeping us safe. I wonder whether Theroux would think my mother did it just 'for effect' too. Journalists have a duty to gather evidence and share knowledge responsibly when the public relies on their reporting. But The Settlers fails on all counts. Let me explain why. Firstly, Theroux says that violence committed by settlers is often framed by them as a reaction to Palestinian violence, which he claims is 'much less frequent' than the former. But this is false. Palestinian attacks against Israelis are far more common than the inverse. According to data from the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, in 2024 alone, Palestinians carried out 6,828 attacks against Israelis – twice that of the previous year (excluding the October 7 massacre). In contrast, there were 673 attacks against Palestinians committed by Israelis in 2024, according to Israeli Defence Force (IDF) statistics. If you adjust these numbers relative to the population size, it means that last year Palestinians committed between around two and three times more attacks than Israelis (depending on which population estimate is used). Hardly 'much less frequent'. Then there's the problem of who Theroux chooses to interview. The only Israeli settlers we meet are the most ideological, many of which are militant, foreign-born outsiders. The Palestinians Theroux interviews however are the opposite: like Issa Amro, a moderate non-violent Palestinian activist from Hebron. This characterisation of Jewish settlers didn't resonate with my experience. Like many of my friends, my mother made it clear I had to be respectful of our Palestinians neighbours. 'Respectful and prudent' she would repeat. Nowhere in my education nor in our community we were taught to disrespect, let alone harass, Palestinians. Even today, a vast majority of those living in the West Bank say they would not move to Jewish settlements if built in Gaza. Theroux's film also leaves out the key historical context which explains why the West Bank is governed in the way it is. Checkpoints, for instance, were built because of a wave of violent attacks by Palestinians travelling into Israeli cities between 2000 and 2002 known as the second intifada. In 2023, many Palestinian stabbing plots were thwarted only because knives were found on the people intending to carry them out as they passed through checkpoints into Israel. Let's be very clear. Every single attack directed at civilians whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis is criminal, immoral and unjustified. Our community must do better to address the root causes of this shameful violence as these are not our values. Settler extremists do not act in our name. But this simplistic worldview — in which the Israelis are oppressors and Palestinians the weak oppressed – is plain wrong. The reality is far more complex. Dr Eitan Oren is a war studies lecturer at King's College London Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Louis Theroux: The Settlers, review: Theroux's approach is mismatched with the political reality of Israel
Oh, BBC. Why do you do this to yourself? If you've been brought low by accusations of bias in a documentary about Israel and Gaza – and an investigation into Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone is ongoing – it's not the best idea to broadcast another one so soon. True, this is not a BBC News programme but Louis Theroux: The Settlers (BBC Two). It is mostly concerned with the West Bank, rather than Hamas-controlled Gaza. Theroux is under no obligation to hide where his sympathies lie, and he doesn't, closing the film by telling a leading settler that she's a sociopath because she doesn't care about the suffering of Palestinians. The Settlers is a follow-up to The Ultra Zionists, a film he made in 2011. That one was very much in the classic Theroux tradition: spend time with religious fanatics who need only the politest prodding to make inflammatory statements. It is a much better documentary than this, which covers the same ground and feels surplus to requirements. The Jewish settlers believe they have a God-given right to live in 'the heart of Judea', refusing to recognise Palestinian claims on the territories. They consider the Bible to be 'a land deed to the West Bank', Theroux explains, and have built settlements that are illegal under international law. Palestinians are subject to aggression and intimidation in a bid to drive them from the land, their attackers able to act with impunity under the protection of the IDF. Most moderate Israelis regard the settlers as a national embarrassment, while the country's security chief, Ronen Bar, has described escalating acts of violence by the 'hilltop youth' as terrorism. The documentary features Daniella Weiss, the fiery and horribly unpleasant 'godmother' of the settler movement, who is so hellbent on claiming Gaza for the Jews that in one scene she tries to shake off a military escort and drive over the border. An ultra-nationalist rabbi, Dov Lior, says: 'All of Gaza, all of Lebanon, should be cleansed of these camel riders.' Theroux says the October 7 atrocities were his spur for returning to Israel because he has heard that the settlement process is being accelerated as a result. But his style is unsuited to the new political reality. An example. Theroux meets a Texan called Ari Abramowitz, who has emigrated to Israel and (illegally) set up a farm deep inside the West Bank. Theroux suggests it is 'weird' for Abramowitz to carry several guns while he goes about his day, including a visit to the synagogue. 'My gun is here to protect the nation of Israel from those who seek to harm us,' says Abramowitz. 'Is it that dangerous?' asks Theroux, in that lightly sceptical voice. But doesn't this exchange make Theroux, not Abramowitz, sound like the mad one? Recent history suggests that Jews have good reason to be prepared for an attack on their homes. Yes, we're talking about Palestinians from the West Bank here and not Hamas, but you can forgive Jewish residents for taking precautions and fearing their Arab neighbours. After invoking October 7 as his reason for making the film, Theroux barely mentions it again. It's a shame that journalists aren't allowed into Gaza, because a film in which he gently accuses a Hamas leader of being a bit of a sociopath would be one to watch.
