Robert Ambrogi Blog
Centari, an AI platform for managing complex transactions, today launched External Views, a capability that allows law firms to create white-labeled dashboards and share them directly with clients.
The feature builds on Centari’s Views capability, introduced earlier this year, which enables firms to analyze transaction trends, benchmark market positions, and visualize deal data across their practices. External Views extends that functionality outward, giving firms a way to package and deliver those insights to clients through secure, branded dashboards.
The premise underlying the feature reflects a broader shift in how firms compete for client relationships, Centari says. As AI tools enable legal departments to take on more routine legal work internally, the differentiating value of outside counsel increasingly lies in the unique market knowledge firms accumulate across hundreds of transactions — knowledge that in-house lawyers cannot replicate on their own.
But until now, Centari argues, firms have had no practical way to put that institutional knowledge in front of clients with data sufficiently precise to carry the firm’s name.
External Views gives firms granular control over what clients can access. Dashboards can present client-specific information or anonymized aggregate market data, and firms can set permissions at the level of individual charts, tables, benchmarks or supporting documents.
The dashboards are powered by Centari’s patent-pending Deal Reasoning Engine, which converts transaction documents into structured, citation-backed data. Because every benchmark ties back to an underlying source document, the company says, firms can support client conversations with verifiable data rather than anecdotal experience.
“Clients increasingly expect more than issue spotting and work product generation,” said Kevin Walker, founder and CEO of Centari and a former Paul Hastings M&A attorney. “They expect data-backed guidance grounded in real market experience. External Views gives firms a secure way to share the insights they’ve built across hundreds of transactions while maintaining complete control over the underlying data.”
Walker also emphasized the reliability concern that has made some firms reluctant to put their names on AI-generated client-facing materials. “Firms are rightly wary of putting their name on client-facing portals built on unreliable AI workflows,” he said.
External Views is available immediately to Centari customers. The company says its customer base includes Ropes & Gray, Fried Frank, Wilson Sonsini, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and Gilbert + Tobin.