Practice management software firm Clio announced Monday it will acquire AI-powered legal research company vLex in a $1 billion cash and stock transaction. The deal, expected to close within four months pending regulatory clearance, marks Clio’s most significant acquisition to date.

Founded in 2000 in Barcelona, vLex offers an expansive legal intelligence platform underpinned by Vincent AI, a generative AI tool for research and litigation support. The platform draws on more than 1 billion legal documents across 100+ countries, and was bolstered by vLex’s 2023 merger with Fastcase, which brought with it tools like Docket Alarm and a robust U.S. case law archive.

“We saw AI as really driving a convergence of the business of law and practice of law,” Clio CEO Jack Newton told Legaltech News. “Bringing vLex, and in particular Vincent, under the Clio umbrella [is] a powerful opportunity to weave practice capabilities, especially in the context of agentic AI, into Clio’s platform.”

Clio has traditionally catered to small and mid-sized firms, but this acquisition underscores a broader shift. In March, Clio purchased ShareDo, a practice management solution for enterprise law. With vLex, the company strengthens its position among larger firms seeking integrated AI and research capabilities across jurisdictions.

Vincent AI, vLex’s flagship product, allows legal professionals to perform natural language research, synthesize judicial content, and conduct comparative legal analysis across all 50 U.S. states and 17 international jurisdictions. Recent upgrades added audio/video transcript analysis and AI-enhanced judicial analytics based on Docket Alarm data.

vLex’s broader suite includes vLex Analytics and NextChapter (a practice management platform), demonstrating a layered offering of research, analytics, and workflow tools. Clio plans to eventually integrate these with its own systems, but for now the companies will operate independently pending full strategic alignment post-closing.

Newton emphasized the value of vLex’s annotated and AI-optimized data repository: “The data is valuable in and of itself, but then the annotation and metadata is what unlocks the possibility,” he said, adding that no other firm offered a comparable acquisition alternative.

Clio was advised in the transaction by Goldman Sachs and law firms Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt; Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati; and Gowling WLG. vLex was advised by J.P. Morgan, A&O Shearman, and Uria Menéndez.

Eleven months before the acquisition, Clio raised $900 million in a Series F round that valued the company at $3 billion. With vLex under its wing, Clio is positioning itself not just as a practice management tool, but as an end-to-end legal intelligence platform capable of serving firms across the legal market spectrum.