Legora has further expanded into the US with a twin office opening in Houston and Chicago to meet growing demand in what is becoming the legaltech supplier’s largest market.
The Houston and Chicago openings come about one year after the Swedish start-up opened its first US office in New York, supplying AI-based legal software for large law firms and corporate legal departments.
Legora, which last year raised Series C funding of $150m, valuing it at $1.8bn, said it expects to open more US offices this year, increasing its headcount in the country to more than 300 employees by the end of 2026.
Its US expansion follows the signing of contracts with US firms including K&L Gates, White & Case, Cleary Gottlieb and Goodwin.
“The US is quickly becoming our largest market by revenue, which is quite remarkable given that we only started building a physical presence there relatively recently,” said Legora chief executive and co-founder Max Junestrand.
In all regions, demand is particularly strong for software that can analyse a large volume of documents and review contracts, he said.
Lawyers also want technology that integrates deeper with common business software including Microsoft Word and Outlook, he said, adding there is also growing interest in AI “agent”-style software, which can complete multi-step legal tasks such as research and analysis.
The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform in late 2022 created a boom in the legaltech market. There is growing evidence that it can save lawyers time and increase efficiency, but firms have to change how they work to get full value from AI.
“A lot of [organisations] initially assume that buying an AI tool is the transformation,” says Junestrand. “In reality it’s a longer process that involves changing workflows, training teams and experimenting with where the technology delivers the most impact. The firms that get the best results treat this as a strategic transformation rather than just a new piece of software.”
Founded in 2023, Legora has grown fast to become one of the biggest legal start-ups, alongside Harvey and Clio. It supplies more than 700 law firms and in-house legal teams.
Last month, legaltech company share prices fell sharply over fears that artificial intelligence may upend rather than fuel their businesses.
The sell-off in professional services company share prices, including legaltech suppliers, was in response to a product update at the end of January by US AI start-up Anthropic, which makes the Claude chatbot. However, analysts and suppliers insisted that the share movement was a market overreaction.
According to Anthropic, its new Claude legal plug-in can automate legal work such as contract reviews, non-disclosure agreements and compliance. That was enough to cause a sell-off in legaltech shares, including RELX, owner of LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and Wolters Kluwer in early February.
Junestrand said the legal AI market was at an early stage and in a phase of rapid experimentation and growth.
The release of AI legal features from generalist AI suppliers such as Anthropic was broadly positive for the market as it raises the “baseline” of what AI can do, he said.
“There’s still a big difference between a powerful model in combination with a plug-in [versus] a product that fits into complex legal workflows, integrates with enterprise systems and can be deployed across thousands of lawyers,” he added.
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