Hilary Bowman and Querious: AI Meets Legal Conversations
The legal profession is witnessing a shift as women increasingly step into roles traditionally held by men, and AI tools find their place in legal practice. Hilary Bowman, founder and CEO of Querious, is at the forefront of this change. After 12 years as a health care attorney, she recognized a gap during client conversations—questions she wished she had asked but didn’t think of in the moment.
Her experience led her to experiment with generative AI, realizing tools like ChatGPT could assist attorneys in brainstorming critical questions during client meetings. This insight gave birth to Querious, an AI-driven tool designed to analyze live attorney-client conversations and suggest pertinent legal questions in real time.
Women and AI Adoption in Law
The legal field's gender demographics are shifting. While 59% of U.S. attorneys remain men, recent data shows women earning 55% of juris doctor degrees in 2023, signaling a new era. However, a Harvard Business School study highlighted a 25% gap in generative AI adoption between men and women, with only a third of women using AI tools in the past year compared to over half of men.
Vanderbilt Law School's Women + AI Summit, led by Professor Cat Moon and data scientist Charreau Bell, tackled this issue by focusing on the intersection of law, technology, and gender equality. Bowman attended the summit and connected with Linsey Krolik from Santa Clara University, where Querious will soon be integrated into the Entrepreneurs’ Law Clinic to help law students engage with startups using AI-enhanced legal tools.
How Querious Works
Querious acts as a virtual assistant that joins attorney-client meetings, listening and analyzing audio to provide timely prompts and relevant legal questions. The goal is to help attorneys maximize the value of client conversations by surfacing issues that might otherwise go unaddressed.
- Subscription cost: $99 per user per month
- Officially launched at the American Bar Association Techshow in April 2025
- Tied for first place in the ABA Startup Alley pitch competition
Before its launch, Querious underwent an 18-month development and beta phase, including a full-scale pilot last fall. Today, about 20 law firms across five states use the tool, alongside several law schools and legal tech consultants.
Early Adoption and Practical Benefits
NEO IP, a Durham-based intellectual property law firm, is one of Querious’s early adopters. They serve entrepreneurs and small businesses in fields from high tech to biotech and rely heavily on data-driven strategies for patent asset management.
Patent attorney Neil Barnes explains that while they’ve used AI summarization tools before, Querious stands out because it’s tailored for legal conversations. It helps identify relevant legal issues and questions on the spot, enhancing client interactions beyond just patent law.
Ease of integration is another plus. Querious can automatically join virtual meetings and be enabled or disabled as needed, fitting smoothly into existing workflows.
Security and Confidentiality
A common concern among law firms is attorney-client confidentiality. Bowman assures that Querious is built with security at its core:
- Operates in a secure cloud environment with end-to-end encryption
- Removes personally identifiable information from transcriptions
- Prevents customer data from training large language models
- Does not waive privilege or breach confidentiality when used with proper security measures
Bowman aims to have 500 users by the end of the year. Recent onboarding of attorneys from five new firms and ongoing talks with larger firms could significantly expand Querious’s user base.
Querious at a Glance
- Headquarters: Raleigh
- Founder: Hilary Bowman
- Email: hilary@querious.ai
- Funding: $1 million raised from family and friends in August 2024, with tweener funding anticipated in Q3 2024
- Employees: 4 full-time
- Development: 18 months including beta testing
- Launch: April 2025
- Clients: 20+ law firms, several law schools, legal tech consultants
For legal professionals interested in integrating AI tools like Querious to enhance client conversations and streamline their practice, exploring AI courses focused on legal applications can be valuable. Resources such as Complete AI Training’s courses by job role offer targeted learning opportunities.
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