From M&A Expert to Pioneer of 'Legal AI'... Lawyer Yulchon's Entrepreneurial Journey

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"Creating summaries or searching for precedents represents the low-value application of legal AI. The true value lies in assisting with high-level decision-making such as 'Where should a semiconductor factory be built?' or 'Is the insurance premium billed correctly?'"

" said Lim Jeong-geun (CEO), who worked as an M&A (mergers and acquisitions) specialist lawyer for 18 years at law firms including Yulchon before founding the legal tech startup BHSN in 2020. He made these remarks during a conversation with Kim Hong-il, CEO of K-Unicorn Investment.

After graduating from Seoul National University's Department of Law and entering the legal profession through the 35th Judicial Training Institute in Suwon, he described himself as "closer to a scholar who enjoys research and studying than an entrepreneur." He sensed that AI would become humanity's tremendous brain upon witnessing the emergence of AlphaGo and jumped into the startup arena.

Inefficiencies experienced during his time as a lawyer also became the spark for his entrepreneurship. Witnessing rampant baseless bluffing even in negotiations worth trillions of won, he realized the necessity of sophisticated data management. The conviction that "proper utilization of data alone can prevent wasted time" moved him forward.

Unlike other legal tech companies, BHSN focuses not on the precedent and statute market but on "contracts." Lim (CEO) stated, "Precedents are undoubtedly high-quality data, but the core of business and corporate legal affairs lies in contracts. Whether a company hires people or purchases goods, all monetary activities ultimately conclude with contracts."

He further emphasized, "We have implemented technology that goes beyond simply reducing contract drafting time by analyzing over 10,000 contract records to detect risks and automatically manage renewal cycles. The system is designed so that data does not need to be scanned from the beginning, achieving both efficiency and reliability."

BHSN approaches legal data by dividing it into "external" and "internal." External materials such as laws, precedents, and government policies are already largely learned by LLMs (large language models), whereas internal company contracts, risk materials, dispute records, and employee regulations remain areas not yet learned by LLMs.

"These data are living data that constantly change and are newly generated," said Lim (CEO). "While AI brains (LLMs) will become increasingly intelligent, once the LLM knows the basics, the key issue ultimately becomes 'how to utilize this company's internal information to create value.'"

"Kim Hong-il (CEO) also highlighted this point. While other companies focus on external data, BHSN differentiates itself by assetizing scattered experience within companies into data."

"As rapid industrialization progressed, accumulated management know-how remained unassetized, staying only in the minds of responsible personnel and disappearing upon their resignation," said Lim (CEO). "If contract data is managed by AI, it can prevent past repeated mistakes and risks, and automatically check missed rights and obligations."

"Lim (CEO) addressed concerns that as Big Tech's LLMs advance, the competitiveness of 'vertical AI' like legal AI might weaken. He explained the AI technology stack by dividing it into five layers: energy, infrastructure, chips, LLM, and applications (services), responding that "this is not the case."

He stated, "LLMs are the brain, and how data is processed and workflows designed on top of them constitute the role of the application layer. As LLM performance improves, the applications above it also advance accordingly."

He also pointed out limitations in using Big Tech's general-purpose LLMs as-is. Lim (CEO) said, "General-purpose models are built to handle everything from videos to documents and cannot specialize in specific tasks. If you input 1,000 documents and say 'handle it yourself,' errors will pour out."

He added, "Cost is also a major issue. If you simply input documents and let them run freely, token costs become astronomical and unmanageable. Therefore, data structures must be designed in advance to establish processes that prevent LLMs from working from scratch each time, reducing costs to an affordable range."

He further dismissed the idea that Big Tech could replace this entirely, stating, "Such workflow design and data structuring vary by country, industry, and case, and are constantly changing, making it difficult for Big Tech to fully substitute them."

BHSN's legal document review, search, and contract management solution 'Allibee' has been validated for usability by corporate legal teams at major companies such as CJ CheilJedang, Hanwha Solutions, and the law firm Yulchon.

"Lim (CEO) stated, "While focusing on contract management as a core pillar, we are expanding our scope into tax and healthcare." He noted, "Annual health insurance premiums billed by hospitals approach 100 trillion won, yet the process is extremely complex, leading to significant errors and losses. Improving even 1% would generate value equivalent to 1 trillion won."

"Lim (CEO) expressed agreement when Kim Hong-il (CEO) defined lawyers' work as "previously focused on reviewing past matters but now creating future value through AI," adding, "AI is becoming a tool that transforms tasks into valuable work that only lawyers can create."

BHSN plans to scale up by leveraging its accumulated corporate references to disseminate know-how embedded in applications to small and mid-sized companies (SMBs). The explanation is that smaller enterprises lacking know-how and processes will benefit most from AI assistance.

Regarding global strategy, the plan is to start with Korea and actively target Asian markets where Korean companies are expanding, particularly using Singapore as a base for full-scale operations.

"Lim (CEO) said, "Asia, where many Korean companies have expanded, is a market of opportunity for us." He continued, "By incorporating local regulations and contract cultures into our solutions, we will build BHSN's unique strong geographic edge that Western companies lack, competing with global legal AI firms."

[MoneyToday startup media platform 'Unicorn Factory']