Dunning Vallejo & MacDonald LLP

Dunning Vallejo & MacDonald (DV&M) is a young, nimble New York boutique firm handling international arbitration and complex business disputes, but with limited staff it had to devote scarce attorney hours to legal research. International arbitration compounds the problem: decisions, pleadings, and briefs are frequently confidential, and no generic legal research product was built specifically for this niche, making it slow to locate useful precedent.

DV&M adopted Jus AI, Jus Mundi's arbitration-specialized legal research assistant, chosen for its purpose-built international arbitration database (including hard-to-find confidential decisions and pleadings), ease of use for a lean team, and responsive vendor support.

The firm reports 50-70% faster legal research across most matters. Facing a 48-hour tribunal deadline that would previously have required 20-30 hours of research, the team produced the needed analysis in about 2 hours and 15 minutes after prompt tweaking. Overnight cross-examination prep using daily witness transcripts dropped from 5-10 hours to 2-3 hours, and early case assessment/client intake accelerated, letting the firm compete head-to-head with larger firms.

• Domain-specialized AI research tools (with niche, otherwise-inaccessible data) can outperform generic legal research products for specific practice areas like international arbitration.
• AI-driven research speed lets small, resource-constrained firms take on tight deadlines and compete against larger, better-staffed teams.
• Responsive vendor support and ease of adoption matter as much as raw capability for lean teams evaluating new tools.