OpenAI has tapped a startup to make its AI work for lawyers

OpenAI has been signaling for months that it wants a bigger foothold in the legal industry. A new partnership offers a clue as to how it plans to get there: not just by selling models and software, but by sending people to help customers actually use them.

Telon, a London startup, is one of the companies giving it boots on the ground.

Rather than sell software, Telon hires and trains "legal engineers" — mostly former lawyers who embed inside law firms and corporate legal teams to help them get more out of the tech they already buy. The model is a bit like forward-deployed engineering-as-a-service.

The startup isn't six months old yet, and it already has the attention of a tech goliath. Telon said Tuesday that OpenAI named it a "select partner," a role that will have the startup working with shared customers to configure models, write prompts, build agents, and train lawyers.

The ChatGPT maker launched the OpenAI Partner Network in June to make it easier for consultants and other partners to bring its models and software into companies around the world. OpenAI said it aims to certify 300,000 consultants by the end of 2026.

Lewis Bretts, a former trial attorney, built up PwC's legal practice before founding Telon in June. He said the hardest part about selling artificial intelligence to law firms isn't closing the deal. It's getting lawyers to actually use it.