White & Case Invests in Clauze.AI, a Saudi Legal AI Platform
The firm backs a bilingual contract and compliance tool founded by the lawyer who ran its Riyadh office for three years.
Tariq Benali Tariq Benali covers business and corporate news across the UAE and MENA for Anecdoted, tracking the deals, leadership moves and regulatory shifts behind the region's companies. tariq@anecdoted.com
White & Case has made a strategic investment in Clauze.AI, a newly launched legal AI platform aimed at legal and corporate clients in Saudi Arabia and the wider region. The firm did not disclose the size of the investment.
Clauze.AI applies AI to contract review, governance management, due diligence, and the identification of legal risks and obligations. White & Case describes the platform as bilingual, with data residency inside Saudi Arabia and the option of on-premises deployment.
Founder leaves the firm after more than a decade
The platform was founded by Waad Alkurini, who will leave White & Case after more than ten years at the firm to concentrate on the new company. She led the Riyadh office for the past three years, and the firm credits her with a significant contribution to its practice in the Kingdom.
Her departure comes as the office she ran continues within the firm's global structure. White & Case has kept people on the ground in Saudi Arabia since 1989. Riyadh accounts for roughly 40 of its lawyers, nine of whom are partners. The wider firm employs more than 2,600 lawyers across 43 offices in 29 countries.
Why the firm is investing
The stake reflects White & Case's interest in legal technology in the Saudi market, and it sits alongside the Kingdom's broader digital transformation program under Saudi Vision 2030. Software that keeps data within Saudi borders and works in Arabic and English addresses two practical requirements for companies operating there.
"AI is reshaping the delivery of legal services and being at the forefront of this change is important to us in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where we have a long history and deep commitment," said Heather McDevitt, Chair of White & Case.
Alkurini made a similar argument in an interview with Forbes Middle East in July. Keeping pace with the Kingdom's rapid economic transformation, she said, requires specialized local expertise working alongside global standards. She pointed to the scale of legal and regulatory evolution as the reason businesses need tools built for local compliance. That momentum, in her account, is what led her to start the company.
International firms, local practices, and a growing field of technology vendors all compete for corporate legal work in the Kingdom, and the firm's backing gives the startup an established name behind it from the day it launches. White & Case has not said what it paid for its stake, and no other terms of the deal have been released.
Alkurini spent her final three years at the firm running its Riyadh office. Her next role is running the company the firm has just backed.
