Former A&O boss launches AI-native law firm, minus the billable hour

Former Allen & Overy boss Wim Dejonghe has co-founded an AI-native law firm built around fixed fees rather than the billable hour.

Falcon is targeting small and medium-sized businesses in Europe with high-volume commercial legal work, starting with contracts such as NDAs, data processing agreements, and customer and supplier agreements.

It has also raised €1.5 million in pre-seed funding.

The firm says it will review six contracts a month for a flat €1,000 fee, with each piece of work signed off by a qualified lawyer and returned the same day.

Falcon is launching from Belgium, with the UK identified as a key market and London one of its next planned European hubs.

Dejonghe, who is joining as a non-executive co-founder, said AI had created a tension that traditional firms would struggle to resolve while they continued to charge by the hour.

“The traditional legal sector is due its neo-bank moment,” he said. “AI has changed how quickly legal work can be done, but the traditional model still rewards firms for the time that work takes.”

“Falcon has been built from scratch around faster delivery and flat-fee pricing, while keeping a qualified lawyer accountable for every piece of work. That’s why I had to be involved,” he said.

From A&O to AI-native law

Dejonghe was managing partner of Allen & Overy before becoming senior partner in 2016 and later helping oversee its historic merger with US firm Shearman & Sterling.

He stepped away from the firm last year and subsequently launched advisory business Dejonghe & Morley with fellow former A&O senior partner David Morley. The firm has already advised on major legal industry deals, including Mourant’s investment from private equity firm MML over the summer.

Falcon’s other founders include former Freshfields lawyer Rémy Bonnaffé and the entrepreneurs behind Belgian HR-tech company Mbrella.

The idea grew out of their experience scaling Mbrella, where routine commercial contracts were becoming increasingly time-consuming and expensive to outsource. They said straightforward work could cost €3,000 to €4,000 at a traditional law firm and take days or weeks.

AI-native firms move upmarket

A growing group of AI native firms have emerged over the past 12 months, with several US-based players moving further upmarket into Big Law territory.

Those include the likes of Crosby and Moritz, while Blackstone-backed Norm Law is using AI to deliver legal services to institutional clients such as private equity firms and compete with traditional Big Law firms.

Falcon says it is initially targeting an estimated €49 billion-a-year European market of SMEs that it believes have been priced out of traditional legal services.