Forward Deployed Engineer

With August, A company's agents ask lawyers for help. Legal AI platform, August, is launching a new feature that allows AI agents working inside a company to request help from lawyers - which could drive more work to law firms. It's a novel take on the use of legal agents and echoes a recent thought experiment by Damien Charlotin in Artificial Lawyer titled 'Humans for AI' - see here - about how agents will need to call upon human lawyers to fully function. In this case, August - which offers a broad range of legal AI skills - explained that 'companies now use agents for procurement, sales and other business work. Those agents regularly reach questions about what they can sign, share or approve. 'August for Agents' lets them put those questions to the company's lawyers from inside the workflow'. August notes that for some companies this may be 'their chosen firm', but equally AL would say that this could be the inhouse legal team, if it's a company with one. Naturally, externalising such queries would work when those issues where either ones that an inhouse team could not answer, or where a company is at a stage where they don't have an inhouse legal group yet. As they explained: 'August for Agents is designed around that allocation of responsibility. It is not a substitute law firm, and it does not ask a client to trust an anonymous legal answer from the open internet. It gives the client's chosen firm a new way to deliver work: faster than a traditional intake process, but still within a service the firm defines and supervises.' They then gave the following example: a procurement agent is renewing a supplier agreement and might find a restriction on how customer data may be processed. It can send the clause and the proposed action to a service run by the company's law firm. The firm's agent (via August) answers right away, if the firm has authorised it to handle that issue. Otherwise a lawyer at the firm reviews the question and signs off. - Advertisement - August also said that law firms could build 'packages of repeatable legal work as a service with defined inputs, a clear scope and a fixed price'. The law firm also then decides which materials the agents may use, and August provides access controls, supporting sources and a record of each request. Plus, the law firm stays responsible for the advice to the client, which is connecting to them via the agents. Thomas Bueler-Faudree, co-founder of August, commented: 'Companies are handing real work to agents, and those agents keep hitting questions only a lawyer should answer. With August for Agents, a client's agent can ask its own law firm at any time, and the firm answers through a service its lawyers built and supervise.' Is this a big deal? Well, it's a smart move, if it can be made to work smoothly. And as noted, it would function just as well for a company that can channel requests to their inhouse team, as well as smaller ones without their own lawyers, which are sending out legal requests to favoured external counsel. August streamlines a legal process, the agentic solution answers important questions for a company, and also drives revenue for the law firm, (if an external set-up). So, a win-win. And as noted, a few weeks ago Damien Charlotin wrote a piece for AL about 'Humans for AI', which is related to this approach. It was a theoretical exploration of the idea that agents may need lawyers, i.e. because agents can hit a brick wall, or make mistakes by themselves, they need a channel that allows them to find lawyers who can help. By combining agents and lawyers you then get a better total result. Just goes to show, truth is stranger than fiction! Legal Innovators UK - Nov 4 and 5 / Legal Innovators New York - Nov 17 and 18 Cosmonauts have now opened Express Registration for Legal Innovators UK and New York. This means that if you are at a law firm or at an inhouse legal team you can now zoom directly to your tickets - which are complimentary as long as you qualify. For London - Nov 4 and 5, at the Minster Building, see here: And, for New York - Nov 17 and 18 - Midtown, please see here:

Meritas strengthens its industry leading Legal Tech program with newest collaborator August. March 18, 2026 Meritas, the premier global alliance of independent business law firms, today announced that August has joined its Legal Tech Education Program, further strengthening the fast-growing initiative designed to help member firms leverage technology to optimize efficient, transparent, and responsive service to clients worldwide. August is a legal AI workspace built for modern legal teams. Its platform helps law firms and in-house teams review, analyze, and draft complex legal documents more efficiently by combining AI-assisted workflows with structured, auditable outputs, directly within tools lawyers already use, including Microsoft Word, Outlook, and SharePoint. This approach enables law firms to adopt AI in a governed, practical way while maintaining lawyer oversight and client confidence. "August works across a lawyer's entire workflow, from email to document review to drafting, with context that follows the matter instead of treating each task in isolation," said August co-founder Thomas Bueler-Faudree. "We're providing Meritas member firms with customized tutorials and onboarding that enable legal teams to handle discovery work, due diligence, and how to maintain their standards while working faster." The Meritas Legal Tech Education Program has gained significant momentum and now includes six best-in-class legal technology partners delivering education programming to Meritas member firms. So far in 2026, the program has added three legal tech companies to the program and renewed three original partners to deliver highly curated, custom curriculum exclusively to its member firms. "At its core, the Meritas Legal Tech Education Program exists to benefit Meritas member firm clients," said Marti Phillips, head of legal technology at Meritas. "Clients expect great efficiency, predictability, and transparency from Meritas member firms, along with superior, quality service. By keeping our firms ahead of technology opportunities and equipping them to thoughtfully and responsibly adopt what works best, they deliver faster turnaround, clearer communication, and consistency across matters and jurisdictions." Phillips, a legal tech veteran who joined Meritas in 2025, notes that law firms face challenges when navigating a crowded and rapidly evolving legal tech landscape. The Meritas Legal Tech Education Program significantly reduces risks in legal tech investment and deployment, accelerating tech-driven outcomes. Gained knowledge and mastery enables lawyers to spend less time on administrative and document-heavy tasks and more time focusing on client strategy, priorities, and outcomes. About Meritas Meritas is a global alliance of independent, market-leading law firms that provides legal services to companies looking to effectively capture opportunities and solve issues anywhere in the world. Clients benefit from local knowledge, collective strength and new efficiencies when they work with Meritas law firms. The personal attention and care they experience is part of Meritas' industry-first commitment to the utmost in quality of service and putting client priorities above all else. Founded in 1990, Meritas has member firms in 245 markets worldwide with over 9,300 dedicated, collaborative lawyers. About August August is a legal AI workspace that helps lawyers handle the full spectrum of their work, from drafting and redlining to research and client communication. Unlike tools that solve isolated tasks, August works across a lawyer's entire workflow with context that moves seamlessly between web, email, and documents. The company has raised $7M in funding from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Pear VC, Afore Capital, Stanford Law School, and executives at OpenAI, Bain Capital Ventures, and Ramp, and serves law firms ranging from solo practitioners to midsize practices. Learn more at www.august.law.