The newest chief marketing officer at a legal technology startup has a warning for marketers: Stop relying on AI to masquerade as a person.
Spellbook, a provider of AI tools for drafting and reviewing legal agreements, told CMO Insider exclusively that it has named Meltem Kuran-Berkowitz as chief marketing officer.
Kuran-Berkowitz is moving into the marketing leadership position on a full-time basis after a short period of freelancing for the company. Before joining Spellbook, she spent five and a half years leading growth at payroll and workforce platform Deel, helping it reach $1 billion in annual recurring revenue.
Her arrival comes as Spellbook continues to scale. In October 2025, the company raised $50 million in Series B funding at a $350 million valuation, with Khosla Ventures leading the round. In March, Spellbook obtained a $40 million debt facility, saying it would use the financing to buy rival generative AI companies.
The legal technology market is expanding rapidly. According to Crunchbase, investors put $2 billion into legal-sector startups during the first half of the year. AI has helped turn one of Silicon Valley’s quieter fields into a leading area of interest, with specialist firms such as Harvey and Legora competing against technology giants including OpenAI as law firms and in-house legal departments rush to adopt tools designed to automate tedious work.
Kuran-Berkowitz said one of her first success targets will be helping Spellbook reach $100 million in revenue by the end of the year.
To get there, she said, the company needs to reach far more prospective customers. However, she has no intention of overwhelming them with AI-generated promotional content.
“If we are going to capture your attention, whether through an email or an Instagram post, we will be upfront with you: a human created it, and we do not want to waste your time,” Kuran-Berkowitz said.
She believes AI can still play a role in marketing, including extracting insights from sales calls and helping create internal presentation decks. What she rejects is technology designed to imitate genuine human interaction.
“My inbox has been overwhelmed with cold emails because everyone can now produce them. Every sender claims to have discovered one tiny thing we share,” Kuran-Berkowitz said.
She cited AI-personalized cold emails that invent weak relationships with messages such as, “I have been to Italy once.”
She described that manufactured sense of familiarity as “creepy.”
“I feel very strongly about this, and I simply do not want to do that to people,” she said.
Spellbook CEO Scott Stevenson also has firm views about how employees should use AI. Earlier this month, he issued a memo encouraging staff to develop the rough, “D+ version” of their ideas before turning to AI to refine their proposals.
Spellbook’s marketing strategy
Kuran-Berkowitz said she does not want Spellbook to copy legal technology companies such as Harvey and Legora by pursuing celebrity sponsorships. Instead, she wants “every customer interaction to be valuable” and to clearly explain what the product offers.
Her media plan focuses on appearing where potential customers already spend time, including private communities and newsletters, without, in her words, “damaging the atmosphere.”
“Where can we fit in naturally without ruining the vibe? And then what can we create that strengthens it?” she said.
This summer, for example, Spellbook established a $1 million fellowship fund for law students to help them simplify complex legal workflows.
Ultimately, Kuran-Berkowitz wants Spellbook to be known for more than the redlining tool that established its reputation. She wants the company to become the brand people associate with contract management.
“Contracts drive the world,” she said. “That is a fact, and the contracts run on Spellbook.”