Avvoka has opened its first US office in New York. The move puts Avvoka in the same city as many of the firms already drafting on its platform, a group that now includes more than a quarter of the AmLaw 100.

The New York office will be led by Giles Thompson, Avvoka's Chief Revenue Officer.

Where the customers already are

Fried Frank, A&O Shearman, Manatt and Katten are among the US firms drafting on Avvoka. Many of them are based in New York or run major practices there, and much of the most demanding drafting in the US happens in the city.

"New York was the obvious place to start. It's where our customers are and it's where the some of the most complex drafting gets done. Being here means we can sit in the room with the teams building their firms' drafting standards, not just dial in from London." Giles Thompson, Chief Revenue Officer, Avvoka

The question every firm is asking

Every firm now has access to the same AI. As one partner at a New York firm put it: "Everyone has the same AI now. What have we got that the firm across the street hasn't?"

Avvoka's answer is the firm's own work. AI assistants that draw on the open internet produce clauses that are competent but generic. A firm's edge lives in its executed deals and the judgement of its senior partners. The problem is that this knowledge rarely reaches the tools lawyers actually draft in.

Firms have always known the value buried in their deal history and have never had a practical way to extract it.

Conan Hines

,

Global Head of Innovation and Knowledge, Fried Frank

Firms have always known the value buried in their deal history and have never had a practical way to extract it.

Conan Hines

,

Global Head of Innovation and Knowledge, Fried Frank

Drafting infrastructure, in every tool lawyers draft in

Lawyers can create better drafts by treating drafting as infrastructure - approved wording and drafting logic they own once and reuse across matters and offices. Avvoka builds that layer in two ways.

• Curate reads a firm's executed deals, shows where they differ and turns them into lawyer-approved templates. It then helps keep those templates current, work knowledge teams have traditionally done by hand.

• Headless drafting puts those templates behind the AI assistants lawyers already use, so the assistant drafts from the firm's approved standard every time. Avvoka is Harvey's only current document automation partner and also works with Legora, Microsoft Copilot and Claude.

The result is predictable, repeatable first drafts that carry the firm's judgement, whichever tool the lawyer opens.

New York firms can book a meeting to see Avvoka working on their own documents.