Avvoka launches Curate to turn deals into templates
Wed, 26th Aug 2026 (Today)
Avvoka has launched Curate, a standalone product that creates legal drafting templates from a law firm's existing transaction documents. The launch expands the company's document drafting software into template creation.
Curate uses artificial intelligence to review prior deal documents and identify different versions of clauses. A lawyer then selects the wording and fallback positions the firm wants to adopt, producing a template that can be used as a bracketed and footnoted Word document or integrated into other drafting systems.
The product is aimed at a long-standing legal knowledge management problem: firms often spend months of partner and knowledge team time creating approved templates. As a result, they may build templates for only a limited number of document types, leaving lawyers to draft new matters from the most recent precedent rather than the strongest wording developed across earlier deals.
By drawing on a firm's historical work, Curate is designed to capture negotiated positions and clause language that might otherwise remain scattered across closed matters, document management systems, and individual lawyers' files. The resulting template can then be updated over time as new transactions are completed, rather than staying fixed at the point it was first assembled.
How it works
A lawyer uploads previous transaction documents into the system, which reads clauses across them and highlights differences in wording. The lawyer then approves the position the firm stands behind on a clause-by-clause basis, creating what Avvoka describes as a single approved standard built from the firm's own documents.
The template can be used directly for drafting, sent through Avvoka's automation software, or accessed through third-party artificial intelligence assistants already used by law firms. Avvoka says its connectors with Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and Harvey allow those tools to draft from the curated template while Avvoka remains the source of the approved wording.
The move follows Avvoka's £14 million growth funding round earlier this year. Founded by former Magic Circle lawyers Eliot Benzecrit and David Howorth, the company says it works with almost a quarter of the Am Law 100, as well as in-house legal teams.
Among the firms Avvoka names as users are A&O Shearman, Fenwick, Fried Frank, and Ropes & Gray. On the corporate side, Warner Bros. Discovery is among its in-house customers.
Curate was developed with several Am Law 100 and global firms that used the product in private beta. Broader access will open later, followed by general availability.
Law firm input
David Howorth, Co-founder of Avvoka, set out the company's view of the commercial problem the new product is intended to solve.
"A firm's edge has never been how fast it can draft. It's the judgement inside its best work, built up over years of market leading deals and negotiated positions. That judgement has always lived in the firm. Curate is the first time a firm can put it to work on every matter. What you end up with is a knowledge asset that gets sharper and scales with every deal," said Howorth.
One law firm executive involved in the product's development pointed to the value of extracting precedent from completed transactions.
"Firms have always known the value buried in their deal history and have never had a practical way to extract it. Turning that into a living, lawyer-approved standard is exactly the right problem to solve, and solving it well could reshape how firms think about their precedents entirely. I'm excited to see it land," said Hines.
Avvoka's approach reflects a broader shift in legal technology, as software suppliers try to link generative artificial intelligence tools with approved internal knowledge rather than rely on open-ended prompting alone. In this case, the company is positioning curated templates as the control point, with lawyers making the final choice on which positions become part of the firm standard.
That emphasis on human approval is central to the product's design. Rather than letting artificial intelligence determine the final drafting position, Curate presents candidate clause language from existing documents and leaves the decision to the lawyer.
Benzecrit said that distinction matters for firms that want to preserve their drafting approach while using newer tools.
"Curate is the product of listening to our clients' drafting challenges for most of the last decade. AI is part of the solution - it's made drafting faster, but not necessarily better. With Curate, we can use AI to read a firm's deals and surface the strongest version of every clause, then feed it back into automation and AI tools. What's different - and crucial - is that a human decides on the positions a firm stands behind. That means the pen stays with the lawyer and the firm's IP - it's voice, approach, judgement - is retained, not diluted," said Benzecrit.