At the Legal Innovators California conference earlier this month, Jon Levy, a managing director at legendary incubator and investor, Y Combinator, said: ‘We invest in talent and we are seeing some of the top people we have ever seen in legal tech now.’
He then immediately referenced Max Junestrand, CEO and co-founder of Legora – a company that Y Combinator has invested in and continues to back. They have also supported via the incubator and/or invested in several other legal tech companies, such as &AI.
The comments came as part of a panel with Zach Abramowitz and Chris Fisher of Myriad Venture Partners on the subject of legal tech investment – and why it seems the smart money is now falling over itself to fund startups in this sector.
Levy also stressed that when it comes to choosing to invest it’s always the people – ‘the talent’ – that mattered. I.e. smart, driven, creative founders can be applied to many problems and will come up with something. So, if idea X doesn’t work, they can pivot and keep creating value.
Moreover, Levy noted the smartest founders are drawn to ‘hard problems’ and legal is a hard problem, given its complexity.
As to seeing the best talent coming through now in relation to legal tech, AL takes this to mean not that really smart folks weren’t creating startups in this sector before – they were – rather that people who perhaps have no immediate connection to the legal world, (and who are not your classic ‘worked in Big Law for two years and decided to create a startup’), are now choosing to join the Y Combinator incubator cohort specifically to do legal projects.
Meanwhile, Fisher added that legal tech is especially interesting as it’s a market segment where ‘there is lots of spend, and it’s one with high price solutions. Humans [in this sector] cost a lot. And there are high costs to do this work inside a company and also outside with advisers’.
I.e. if you want to find a new and profitable segment of the market, look to where there is a lot of money flowing through it – but where there (even now) is little technology being applied to how work is actually performed. Hence, there is a lot of room for software companies to grow and create value.
The panel also agreed that 1) this is still early days for legal tech; 2) ‘obviously some [legal] jobs will go away’; and 3) there will be no ‘winner takes all’ scenario for legal tech.
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Other memorable comments included one from the co-founder of the Flatiron Law Group, Leonard Nuara, who noted that legal AI tools are still not as good as a trained lawyer and the market needed to remain mindful of that.
He also then gave the one-liner of the conference, that people are so excited about what this technology can do, it’s as if ‘everyone’s in the backroom getting high on genAI’…! 🙂
Harvey’s GC John LaBarre gave a strong keynote and raised the idea that two agents would eventually be able to complete an NDA negotiation – and that does indeed seem totally realistic in the next few years. (In fact, some may even claim it can be done right now…)
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Other comments from the speakers
The number of staff a company has is no longer a good benchmark on which to judge its success.
AI will help reduce lawyer burnout.
Spare time – created by AI – can be filled with training.
There is a challenge with a one-size-fits all approach to AI users, as some will be ‘scared to use it, some can work with AI by themselves, and others can become ‘rogue users’ and they need to be controlled’.
Adding AI into law firms and inhouse is not just a chance to add tech, but an opportunity to find a whole new approach to each workflow.
AI is simply here now – it’s like the internet, and you can’t tell people not to use the internet.
For the first time, tech teams inside corporates are aligned with legal teams (which want to use AI as well).
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And that ends Part Two of the Legal Innovators Insights from California. Part One is here. It was a great event and these remembered comments are just a snippet of what was shared on stage and in the exhibition areas.
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Legal Innovators Conferences New York and UK – Both In November ’25
If you’d like to stay ahead of the legal AI curve….then come along to Legal Innovators New York, Nov 19 + 20, where the brightest minds will be sharing their insights on where we are now and where we are heading.
And also, Legal Innovators UK – Nov 4 + 5 + 6
Both events, as always, are organised by the awesome Cosmonauts team!
Please get in contact with them if you’d like to take part.
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