Simmons picks Flank for legal AI agent roll-out

Simmons & Simmons has teamed up with Berlin-based legal AI startup Flank to roll out a new suite of autonomous legal agents across the firm, starting with tools for NDAs, data agreements and investment management contracts.

The deal, announced alongside Flank’s $10 million Series A round, sees Simmons embed agentic systems directly into its internal workflows.

Simmons was one of the first UK firms to develop its own in-house genAI tool, called Percy. The firm says its new agents, developed with Flank, can manage requests, mark-up documents and escalate more complex matters when necessary.

The firm’s first live agent is focused on NDAs, but others are in development for data processing agreements (DPAs), service agreements and investment management agreements (IMAs).

"Autonomous agents aren’t the future... they’re already here, and they’re transforming how we work", said Simmons partner Lucy Shurwood.

Partner Peter Lee added: "Our AI agents are having a significant impact on how we deliver for our clients, augmenting the work of our legal and compliance teams. As fully-fledged, integrated digital co-workers, they’re already handling large volumes of routine requests, freeing up our lawyers to focus on more complex, high-value work."

The agent arms race

Just this week, Thomson Reuters launched its own agentic version of CoCounsel for tax and accounting professionals, while previewing agent capabilities for legal. Last month, UK startup Definely launched Enhance, an agent system for contract drafting and review.

Instead of relying on prompts or pre-defined steps in a workflow, agentic AI is designed to think and act independently. It's designed to loop through tasks, decide what to do next, and replicate how a junior lawyer might approach a problem.

What’s Flank?

Flank specialises in AI agents. The company was founded in 2019 and originally operated under the name Legal OS until last year when it rebranded to Flank to reflect a shift to attract users outside of in-house legal teams.

Flank's total funding now stands at $18 million, with backers including Insight Partners - which has also invested in legal tech company Clio and British cybersecurity company Darktrace.