Most law firms borrow their horsepower — leasing AI tools from outside developers the way a business might rent office space instead of building its own headquarters. Latham & Watkins LLP is taking the opposite route. The firm confirmed to Law360 Pulse on Thursday that it's buying servers from Nvidia Corp., a longtime client, to construct its own in-house artificial intelligence system from the ground up.

Betting on Ownership Over Rental

By choosing this path, Latham joins a small but growing club of firms opting to build proprietary AI platforms rather than licensing technology from third-party developers such as OpenAI. Just last month, ArentFox Schiff LLP made a similar move, rolling out software tailored for its attorneys to tackle specific industry use cases — a sign that the "build it yourself" strategy is gaining traction beyond a single outlier.

Latham offered no further comment Thursday, keeping the finer technical details of its new system under wraps for now.

A Client Relationship That Cuts Both Ways

The Nvidia connection here isn't incidental — it's layered. Nvidia is already a Latham client, and just last month the firm advised the tech giant on developing an AI data center in Ohio. Now, in a twist that blurs the line between counsel and customer, Latham is turning around and purchasing hardware from the very company it recently advised — a relationship that seems to be feeding itself in both directions.

Latham's Standing in the Legal World

Latham isn't a small player experimenting on the sidelines. The firm ranked as the second-largest U.S. law firm on this year's Law360 400 list, boasting roughly 680 partners among 2,850 total attorneys nationwide, with offices spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. It's also among the firms actively hiring for new AI-focused positions or actively hunting for that specialized talent — proof this server purchase fits into a broader strategic push, not a one-off experiment.

Money Is Pouring Into Legal Tech

Latham's move lands amid a broader financial surge reshaping the legal industry. Total funding for legal technology companies climbed roughly 12% year over year, reaching $4.01 billion during the first half of 2026, according to a Law360 Pulse analysis — with AI companies driving the bulk of that growth. Adding to the momentum this week, legal AI company Harvey raised $550 million, pushing its valuation up to $15.5 billion — numbers that read less like incremental growth and more like an industry-wide gold rush.

A Technology With Growing Pains

Still, the road toward AI adoption hasn't been entirely smooth. Court leaders have publicly admonished errors stemming from AI misuse, while in-house legal department leaders have voiced frustration over costs that seem to outpace budget gains. Corporate boards, meanwhile, have been forming dedicated committees to track the technology's inherent pitfalls, and so-called "AI-native law firms" have been cautioned to preserve a genuine "human element" amid the rush toward automation. Regulators haven't stayed on the sidelines either — legislation targeting attorneys' and arbitrators' AI use has already passed in California, signaling that oversight is catching up fast to adoption.

Taken together, Latham's decision to build rather than borrow reflects an industry standing at a crossroads — eager to harness AI's power, yet increasingly aware that the tools shaping the future of law still need careful, human hands steering the wheel.