A London company that uses AI to check law firm bills against client rules before they are sent.
Antidote makes software that helps law firms get their bills right. Lawyers who charge by the hour write a short note for each block of time they record. Big clients often have long rule books, called outside counsel guidelines, saying what they will and will not pay for. If a note breaks the rules, the client can reject the bill, and the firm loses time and money. Antidote reads each time entry as it is written, checks it against the client's rules and the firm's own standards, explains the problem and suggests wording that still tells the truth about the work.
Antidote is based in London. LawNext reports that it was founded by Nicholas d'Adhemar and Matt Lyons. D'Adhemar is chief executive; he is a former practising lawyer who later founded Apperio, a platform that helped company legal departments manage their legal spending. Lyons is the chief technology officer and was Apperio's chief product and technology officer. Apperio was bought by PERSUIT in May 2025. The company was announced publicly in January 2026, so it is very new. It says leading law firms in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia already use it, and it is growing its US presence.
The goal, in d'Adhemar's words, is 'We built Antidote to remove billing friction by automating compliance for law firms', moving the check to the moment the time entry is written rather than weeks later. He also says 'We don't want to create another system lawyers have to learn or another place they have to go', which explains why the product works inside the tools lawyers already use. The company claims non-compliant billing costs firms 8 to 12 per cent of billable hours a year (its own figure).
The product connects to a firm's time-recording and practice management systems and uses artificial intelligence (AI) to pull the rules out of long client guideline documents, so nobody has to type them in by hand. It flags possible breaches as entries are created, offers compliant rewrites, and combines the written rules with what clients have really paid for in the past. It can also send flags and suggested rewrites in a weekly email digest so lawyers do not need to log in anywhere.
We found no careers page, graduate scheme or apprenticeship details, and nothing published about culture or team size. A start-up this young usually has a small team mixing software engineers, product people and people who understand how law firms work, but that is a general pattern and not something Antidote has said. Check its website or ask directly if you are interested.
Website: www.antidote.legal
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