The daily publication · October 16, 2026 · Legal

The law firm that bills flat, not by the hour

By Tabron Merryhill · The Workflow

The idea

Wim Dejonghe used to run Allen & Overy. Now he is launching Falcon, an AI-native law firm for European small and mid-size businesses.

The offer: six commercial contracts a month, NDAs and data processing agreements, reviewed for a flat 1,000 euros. Submitted through Slack or Teams. Every review signed off by a qualified lawyer and returned the same day.

Falcon says the traditional firm price for that volume is 3,000 to 4,000 euros and takes days or weeks. Dejonghe's line: the hourly billing model "basically passes on inefficiencies to the client."

The example

This is not AI replacing the lawyer. Every review gets a qualified lawyer's sign-off. The AI does the first pass, the human carries the liability.

Backed by 1.5 million euros in pre-seed funding, launching in Belgium with UK expansion planned. Loop Earplugs is an early customer.

The pricing workflow of a whole profession is being rewritten. Not the task list. The business model.

The next step

Look at your own pricing. If you bill by the hour, AI just made your hours cheaper to produce. The firms that win will be the ones that price the outcome, like Falcon did, and keep the human where the liability lives. The firms that keep billing hours for work a machine drafts will be undercut by someone who does the math first.