In conversation with Damián Vallejo at Dunning Vallejo & MacDonald LLP
“If I had to describe the value that Jus AI brings to a firm like ours in one sentence, I would probably use a word which is efficiency—and that translates not only in efficiency for us in terms of the time we spend working on matters but also translates into efficiencies for the clients we represent.”
Damián Vallejo
Partner, Dunning Vallejo & MacDonald LLP
Results at a Glance
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Research Speed | 50-70% time reduction |
| Early Case Assessment | From days to hours |
| Hearing Preparation | Cross-examination prep reduced from 5-10 hours to 2-3 hours |
| Client Response Time | 48-hour tribunal deadline met with hours to spare |
| Primary Benefit | Leveling the playing field against larger firms |
About Dunning Vallejo and MacDonald
Dunning Vallejo and MacDonald (DV&M) is a New York-based boutique law firm founded in 2019. The firm focuses on business transactions and business disputes, handling both litigation and arbitration at the international and domestic levels. With a practice that spans investor-state arbitration, commercial arbitration, and complex business disputes, the firm has built expertise across multiple industries, including financial disputes, construction, energy, and business divorce matters.
Damián Vallejo, Partner at the firm, leads a nimble team that works with high-net-worth individuals, family offices, private equity funds, non-public companies, and government entities.
The Opportunity
The Small Firm Challenge
“Before Jus AI, we had a few challenges doing legal research primarily because we are a young firm,” Damián explains. “We have a very nimble team, so we don’t have a large structure. We had to deploy a lot of the resources that we had both in terms of human capital and the time that the attorneys could spend doing legal research.”
For DV&M, hours spent on research meant less time for high-value work, business development, or attorney mentoring—opportunity costs that added up quickly.
The International Arbitration Data Gap
International arbitration presents unique research obstacles that general legal research tools can’t address.
“Another challenge we had before Jus AI is the fact that there were no products available in the market that were specifically focused for international arbitration,” Damián notes. “A lot of the information is confidential. The decisions tend to be confidential. And a lot of the pleadings and briefs submitted in those cases tend to be also confidential.”
This made identifying useful data incredibly time-consuming—a significant disadvantage when competing against larger firms.
The Solution: Arbitration-Specialized AI
After evaluating multiple options, DV&M chose Jus AI for three critical reasons: user-friendliness, exceptional client service, and access to specialized international arbitration data unavailable elsewhere.
Built for International Arbitration
Unlike generic legal research tools, Jus AI’s specialized focus on international arbitration proved transformative. The platform provides access to a database specifically curated for international work—including confidential decisions and pleadings that are difficult to locate through other means.
“Other products don’t have the data that we need for international arbitration,” Damián emphasizes. “They might be more disputes generic, but Jus AI has access to a database that is specifically focused for international arbitration and international work.”
Responsive Partnership
For a small firm where every hour counts, the quality of client service matters.
“I can’t think of any instance in which one of us has emailed you guys at Jus Mundi and we haven’t gotten a response within a matter of a few hours,” Damián says.
This responsiveness means the team can resolve questions quickly and keep matters moving forward.
Intuitive and Fast
Critical for a lean practice where attorneys need to be productive from day one with any new tool, Jus AI’s user-friendliness meant immediate adoption across the team.
The Impact
50-70% Faster Research
“Jus AI has really improved our research capabilities not only from a depth perspective but also from an efficiency perspective. In many cases—or most cases, I’d say—it’s saving us 50 to 70% of the time we would usually deploy or spend doing legal research.”
Meeting Impossible Deadlines
When the tribunal granted just 48 hours to respond to an opposing party’s petition, Jus AI made the difference.
Before Jus AI, it would have probably taken us 20 to 30 hours to conduct the research we needed,” Damián recalls. “Because of Jus AI, we spent a couple hours tweaking the prompt, and then within two hours and 15 minutes or less, we had the research we needed.”
This freed up time to focus on strategy and persuasive writing—the high-value work that wins cases.
Faster Client Intake and Case Assessment
“We are now able to conduct legal research and come up with a legal theory or theories for the case in a much more cost-efficient manner,” Damián explains. “This translates into potentially getting engaged by that specific client much quicker.”
Early case assessment accelerated dramatically. When potential clients want answers quickly about case strength and legal theories, Jus AI delivers.
Enhanced Hearing Performance
During a recent arbitration hearing with daily witness transcripts, Jus AI helped identify testimony inconsistencies overnight for next-day cross-examination.
Previously, this manual analysis required 5-10 hours late into the night. With Jus AI, the timeline compressed to 2-3 hours, freeing up time to develop additional questions for the following day.
Leveling the Playing Field
“We tend to have in front of us larger firms where they might have more manpower. By using Jus AI and leveraging the efficiency that the tool is bringing to us, we are able to go head-to-head against much larger teams—which also translates into cost efficiency for our client base.”
Clients get boutique economics with big firm capabilities—a compelling value proposition made possible by technology.
Game-Changing for the Practice
“I would probably define it as one of the most efficient products our firm has implemented over the past six years, which is the life of our firm. I think it has been game-changing for the kind of practice that we have.”
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