How a firm actually works a matter
Labs want to teach models the steps between “new client calls” and “matter closed”: the intake, the drafting, the revisions and the judgment calls. Legal is one of the industries data buyers now list by name.
Why labs want it
Public case law and statutes are already in every training set. What labs lack is the firm side: how a precedent bank gets reused, how a draft moves through three rounds of comments, how a partner decides what to escalate.
Mercor lists legal among its target industries, micro1 lists legal and contracts as a data area, Handshake AI lists legal research workflows and templates, and the founder of Grepped named legal as a sector in demand.
Where this is reported, as of October 2026. None of these companies is a SellMyData customer; they are the public record of what buyers are asking for.
- MercorLists legal among its target industries, with contracts, case files and discovery documents as examples. Mercor Data, target industries.
- micro1Lists legal and contracts as a data area: contract workflows, review processes, governance documentation and compliance procedures. micro1 Company Data Partnerships.
- Handshake AILists legal among its industries: research workflows, process documentation and reusable templates. Handshake AI data partnerships.
- DealroomReports that Grepped’s founder named accounting, legal, chemistry and semiconductors as sectors in demand. Grepped dangles $9M VP role as AI data-licensing boom heats up.
What sells in legal
The five data types →Messages
Internal threads on matters, staffing and process. Client communications only where engagement terms allow it, which the rights check covers.
Outlook · Teams · Slack
Code
Rare in a law firm. Document-automation scripts and templates count as documents.
Usually none
Documents
Templates, precedent banks, playbooks, internal memos, checklists and training materials. Redlines show the reasoning.
Clio · NetDocuments · Drive
Records
Matter records, time entries, billing and intake history, with client identities removed.
Clio · MyCase · QuickBooks
Tasks
Matter task lists, intake queues and deadline tracking from open to closed.
Clio · Smokeball · PracticePanther
Tool names are the ones we see most in this industry. If yours isn’t listed, it almost certainly still counts: take inventory and we’ll tell you.
What stays out
- Privileged materialAnything protected by privilege or by a confidentiality term in an engagement letter stays out. The rights check goes through your engagement terms with you before anything is scoped.
- Client identitiesClient names, opposing parties, witnesses and anyone else in a file are replaced with consistent placeholders.
- Consumer dataWe don’t buy consumer personal data, health records tied to people, or payment card data, and we check that none is mixed into what’s in scope.
- HR and personal channelsDirect messages, HR channels, payroll files and anything about an individual employee stay out.
Full detail: what we remove and how rights are checked. We don’t buy consumer personal data, health records tied to people, or payment card data.
How it works
- STEP 01
Value it
Answer a few questions and get an estimated range. Nothing is shared yet.
- STEP 02
Share your exports
We walk you through exporting from each tool you choose, for the date range you choose. We never write to your systems.
- STEP 03
Approve the listing
We strip names, contacts and identifiers. You review the redacted preview and the price before any lab sees it.
- STEP 04
Get paid
When a lab buys a license, you get paid. We aim to pay within 7 days of the sale closing.
Today this is done by hand, with you. You export, we clean and prepare, you approve. How you stay in control.
Questions from legal
Won’t this breach client confidentiality?
It can’t be allowed to. We start with your engagement terms and your bar’s rules, and we scope only what you have the right to license. Many firms start with their own templates, playbooks and internal process material, which involve no client confidences at all.
What about privileged documents?
They are out of scope. We don’t list them, and we check that none are mixed into an export.
Can we license only our forms and templates?
Yes. A clean template library with its revision history is a complete dataset on its own.
Do you want court filings? They’re already public.
Not on their own. The value is in the drafts, comments and decisions that led to them, which never become public.
Something else? Email micki@sellmydata.com.