Prime Highlights
- US law firms adopt AI-powered MSO models to attract outside investment and challenge Big Law.
- Norm Law and Broadfield use AI and private capital to deliver lower-cost legal services.
Key Facts
- Kirkland & Ellis has committed $500 million to build an AI platform with Palantir.
- MSO structures allow law firms to separate legal practice from business operations and access private investment.
Background
A new financial structure is helping technology-driven law firms raise outside capital and challenge established players in the United States legal market, as artificial intelligence reshapes how legal services are delivered.
Several new law firms are adopting a model called the Management Services Organisation, or MSO, which splits a firm into two parts. One side handles legal work and stays under lawyer ownership, as required by US professional ethics rules.
The other side manages back-office operations, technology and intellectual property, and can accept funding from private equity, venture capital and outside entrepreneurs.
Peter Sacripanti, former co-chair of McDermott Will and Emery and now chair of newly formed firm Broadfield, said rising legal costs and growing AI capabilities made the current moment right for change.
Broadfield has received backing from the founders of Alvarez and Marsal, a private equity-focused consulting group.
The MSO model has also attracted firms built around artificial intelligence from the start. Norm Law, based at One World Trade Center in New York, serves asset managers and financial services clients.
The firm uses AI agents to handle work that traditional firms assign to junior lawyers, and aims to match or undercut the cost of routine corporate legal work.
Norm Law chair Mike Schmidtberger, who spent 35 years at Sidley Austin before joining in January 2026, said standing still was not a viable strategy for any firm.
Meanwhile, Kirkland and Ellis, the world’s highest-grossing law firm, announced it had set aside 500 million dollars to build its own AI platform and signed a deal with Palantir to develop technology for private equity advisory work.
