Artificial intelligence is redefining how organisations conduct research, manage documents, and automate routine tasks. Against this backdrop, Modulaw AI, a Nigerian startup, is positioning itself as a legal-specific AI platform designed not only for research but also to operate the day-to-day backbone of law firms.
From drafting briefs to organising litigation workflows, AI-powered systems are steadily becoming embedded in modern legal practice.
Yet in Nigeria, the transition remains uneven. Many law firms continue to rely on manual processes, partly due to limited access to digitised legal records and longstanding professional caution towards emerging technologies. Modulaw AI wants to change this.
“In law, grounded facts are really important,” Abiola Ogodo, Co-founder of Modulaw AI, explains. “Recently, I heard of a law firm that got fined for hallucinated results from ChatGPT or Claude.”
What you need to know
Modulaw AI began as a research tool but has since evolved into a broader legal operations platform integrating research, case management, client collaboration, and workflow automation within a unified interface.
At the core of the system is a conversational research engine that draws from an internal database of roughly 10,000 judgments from the Court of Appeal of Nigeria and the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Rather than relying solely on open internet data, the platform retrieves relevant cases directly from this repository before generating responses.
When lawyers query the system, it surfaces relevant authorities, summarises decisions, identifies key legal issues, and assigns confidence scores to each output, a design intended to minimise hallucinated citations and improve professional trust.
The architecture relies on retriever-augmented generation (RAG), enabling the AI to ground responses in verified legal materials prior to synthesis.
The startup’s model
Beyond research, the platform functions as a digital case management hub. Law firms can assign tasks, track litigation progress, manage documents, record billable hours, schedule meetings, generate invoices, and receive payments without switching between multiple applications.
Workflow automation further extends functionality. For example, once a prospective client completes an intake form, the system can automatically structure case data, assign responsibilities, and notify relevant team members. Lawyers can also instruct the platform through chat commands to execute operational actions such as producing invoices or retrieving matter updates.
Since commercially launching in August 2025, Modulaw AI has released three core modules, research, case management, and client collaboration, while a contract management suite remains under development.
The company reports onboarding 28 law firms to date, building on approximately 1,000 users who previously engaged with its free offering. Although its primary market remains Nigeria, at least one United States-based law firm is already utilising the platform.
A personal problem sparks a startup
The concept behind Modulaw AI originated from Ogodo’s personal experiences observing his father, a practising lawyer, navigate the labour-intensive realities of traditional legal research.
The process often involved extensive reliance on physical law reports and time-consuming searches for relevant precedents. Missed materials and logistical challenges were common, underscoring the inefficiencies inherent in analogue research environments.
“I saw my dad struggle with legal research, and it was a serious issue. Sometimes, we would have to run after him when he forgot his books and other materials,” Ogodo recalls.
As AI capabilities matured, he identified an opportunity to apply the technology to a problem he had witnessed first-hand. The initial product addressed research alone, but subsequent development revealed broader operational inefficiencies across law firm workflows, prompting expansion into a comprehensive platform.
Revenue strategy and early traction
Modulaw AI operates a hybrid monetisation model combining subscriptions, usage-based credits, and payment facilitation fees.
Its tiered subscription structure, student, essential, and professional is offered on monthly and annual billing cycles, with each plan including a baseline allocation of usage credits and team size limits. Queries, workflow automation, and other AI-driven actions consume credits, while additional credits can be purchased as required.
The platform also generates income from invoicing transactions processed through its payment system, charging ₦250 for invoices below ₦500,000 and ₦500 for those above the threshold.
Since introducing paid plans in August 2025, the startup says it has recorded more than ₦4 million in revenue. The company remains bootstrapped and has yet to secure external investment.
Competing in an emerging legaltech market
Nigeria’s legal technology landscape remains nascent but increasingly active, with platforms such as Case Radar and NextCounsel addressing specific segments of the legal workflow.
Modulaw AI’s strategy differs by emphasising consolidation. By combining research, operational management, automation, and billing within a single environment, the company aims to reduce software fragmentation across law firms.
Another distinguishing feature is its AI agent capability, allowing lawyers to interact with the platform conversationally to execute tasks rather than navigating traditional software dashboards. The approach, Ogodo argues, enables automation without imposing additional technological complexity.
Modulaw AI’s long-term ambition is to evolve into a complete legal operating system capable of supporting the entire lifecycle of legal work.
Talking Points
It is noteworthy that Modulaw AI is tackling one of the most persistent structural challenges in Nigeria’s legal industry, the lack of accessible, digitised legal data. By grounding its AI research engine in verified court judgments, the platform directly addresses the growing concern around hallucinated legal citations from general-purpose AI tools.
This approach positions Modulaw AI as a credibility-first solution in a profession where accuracy is non-negotiable. For lawyers operating in Nigeria’s largely manual legal environment, the ability to retrieve verifiable precedents through a conversational interface could significantly reduce research time while improving confidence in AI-assisted workflows.
Beyond research, the decision to integrate case management, client collaboration, billing, and workflow automation into a single platform reflects a clear understanding of law firm operational fragmentation. Instead of adopting multiple disconnected tools, firms can centralise activities within one ecosystem, potentially improving efficiency, accountability, and service delivery.
At Techparley, we see this consolidation strategy as particularly relevant for small and mid-sized law firms that often lack the resources to invest in enterprise-grade legal software stacks. A unified system lowers the barrier to digital transformation and could help modernise practice management across the sector.
If execution continues at its current pace, Modulaw AI could become part of a new wave of African startups applying grounded AI to modernise conservative professional sectors, demonstrating how specialised intelligence can deliver practical, high-trust innovation.
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