The New Zealand branch of leading Asia-Pacific law firm MinterEllison, known as MinterEllisonRuddWatts, has launched a joint venture with tech investment platform Goat Ventures to develop a new legal AI company. The JV will provide NZ$2m as co-investment to develop a completely new legal AI business. The firm said it wanted to focus on AI because legal services are well suited to this technology. The MinterEllison project in New Zealand is different in that it is specifically looking at building a legal AI application, most other law firms that have invested in or supported new legal tech have had a more general outlook. Also, this JV is focused on creating just one standalone legal AI business and is not seeking to support start-ups in general or seeking to be an incubator or accelerator to other legal tech businesses.