Robert Ambrogi Blog
A New York-based legal tech startup called Abstract is making a push into the market for legislative and regulatory monitoring, offering law firms and corporate legal departments what it describes as a fundamentally different approach to keeping clients and businesses informed about government activity that may affect them.
At Legalweek in March, I had a chance to meet with Abstract cofounders Patrick Utz, CEO, and Matthew Chang, COO, and then followed up with a product demo via Zoom last week. As a frequent user of bill-tracking software in my own work as a lobbyist, I was impressed with what I saw.
The ‘Intelligence Layer’
While traditional bill-tracking software has come a long way, most products still suffer from one central weakness – they are keyword-driven. You get alerts about legislation that contains words you tell the system to watch for, but you risk missing a lot. A privacy bill, for example, could have consequences for a particular industry without ever using that industry’s terminology.
A key distinguishing innovation is what Abstract calls an “intelligence layer” – a client profile built from both publicly available information (press releases, website content, public statements) and confidential internal context that clients can upload directly into the platform.
That profile is then used to score and filter legislative and regulatory activity across any jurisdiction the client wants to monitor.
The practical effect is that Abstract can surface bills and regulations that are relevant to a client even when those documents never use the client’s industry’s keywords.
A newspaper publisher, for example, might need to track subscription opt-out legislation that has nothing in the text about news organizations. Abstract, armed with context about the client’s business model, can make that connection.
“Think of context as all of their web pages and all the deep research it found about them,” Utz explained during the demo. “And then it’ll take that, turn that into specific keywords that it’s then matching and scoring all the bills by.”
The company is also rolling out an update that will surface the full list of synonyms and contextual keywords the system is using, so users can see exactly what Abstract is looking for on their behalf – a transparency feature that addresses potential concerns about black-box AI.
Coverage and Data
Abstract builds its own data pipelines, pulling from all 50 state legislatures, federal agencies, and a broad range of local jurisdictions, including cities, counties and special districts.
For clients that need coverage of thousands of municipalities, the company has developed an agentic approach that proactively goes out to find relevant activity even where no pre-built pipeline exists. Historical data goes back 10 to 20 years, depending on the legislature, enabling comparative and longitudinal analysis.
The company supplements its in-house scrapers with licensed data feeds, including some from established legal information providers. Utz said that two major legal information companies are in discussions with Abstract about incorporating its data as an add-on to their own services.
Analysis and Strategy
What most differentiates Abstract from many other bill-tracking services is in what happens after a relevant bill or regulation is identified. The platform spans three distinct but related workflows:
- Discovery is the initial monitoring function – the daily feed of what’s changed across the jurisdictions a client cares about, surfaced through the intelligence layer.
- Impact reports go much deeper, generating structured analyses of how a specific bill would affect a client fiscally, operationally and strategically. These reports include stakeholder maps, talking points for neutralizing opposition, and recommended next steps. During the demo, Utz ran an impact report on a Massachusetts journalist shield bill I’m actively working on, and the results were substantively accurate – correctly identifying the bill’s current committee, the procedural bottlenecks, and the key deadline.
- Strategy workflows were developed in collaboration with experienced lobbyists and incorporate frameworks drawn partly from professionals in the field. The system can map stakeholders, suggest optimal timing for testimony or amendment proposals, and lay out a go-forward playbook. It also integrates contact information for legislative staffers through a data partnership, which is a practical detail that distinguishes it from simply prompting a general-purpose LLM.
Background and Pricing
Abstract has been around for five years, though its current product is newer. The company started as an AI research project at Loyola Marymount University, initially built with a consumer-facing mission of making government more transparent and accessible.
It pivoted to selling software to California lobbyists, growing to more than 200 lobbying firms there, before pivoting again toward law firms and corporate legal teams. The earlier lobbyist product has since been discontinued.
In January 2025, Abstract closed a $5 million seed round to fund development of the current product. The company is incorporated as Washington Abstract (a nod to its early days building an app to demystify Washington during the first Trump administration), but it operates as Abstract and is based in New York.
Pricing is based on coverage rather than seats. The more jurisdictions a client monitors, the more they pay.
The company is working toward a self-serve version that would allow smaller organizations to get started without a sales conversation, with credit card signup and immediate access.
Who It’s For
Abstract’s primary targets are large law firms (particularly government affairs and regulatory practices), in-house legal and government affairs teams at corporations, and trade associations monitoring issues across many states.
The company already has clients who have replaced legacy bill tracking tools such as Fiscal Note or Quorum entirely with Abstract. Others use it alongside existing tools.
Based on my own experience as a practicing lobbyist, I think the most compelling use case for Abstract is for the lobbying professional or in-house team managing broad issue coverage across multiple jurisdictions, especially when dealing with legislative areas where they lack deep subject-matter expertise.