Essay

New media always begin by imitating the old.

Every new medium starts with people applying what they knew from the old one, and what eventually works is never just the old product, faster. Legal AI is in its imitation phase. We’re building for what comes after it.

§ 01The pattern

Radio

broadcast vaudeville acts.

Film

pointed cameras at stage plays.

Television

was radio with a picture.

The web

reproduced print magazines.

Legal AI

is recreating the current approach.

foundational.law

builds work native to the medium.

Legal AI is in its imitation phase: the same memos, the same review cycles, the same one-shot work product, produced quicker. Faster vaudeville is still vaudeville.

We treat AI as a different medium and build work product native to it: maintained knowledge bases rather than one-shot memos, situational intelligence alongside legal analysis, and deliverables that take whatever form gets the decision made. The interesting question is not how fast the old product can be made. It is what the new medium makes possible.

What that looks like in practice →

Curious what the new medium makes possible?

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