How AI-powered Lawhive is going after the global consumer law market

Lawhive is betting it can rebuild consumer legal services from the ground up using AI, and do it as a law firm, rather than as a tech company.

Speaking on The Non-Billable Podcast, CEO and co-founder Pierre Proner says the UK-founded startup’s early direction was steered by resistance from traditional firms.

Founded six years ago, Lawhive initially offered automation software to high street firms. While feedback was positive, many were wary of the impact on their economics. “They were very concerned about the erosion of billable hours,” he says.

From software to law firm

That led Lawhive - where none of the three founders are lawyers - to pivot from selling software to becoming a regulated firm itself. “If we wanted to make the kind of impact we wanted, the only way to do that was to not only be the software layer, but also be the regulated firm,” Proner says.

The firm is now authorised by the SRA and operates its own end-to-end AI platform across the full lifecycle of legal work.

That platform is designed to automate both routine legal tasks and the large volume of administrative work that sits behind them. “AI is natively deeply embedded in almost every workflow,” Proner says, from client intake through to drafting and legal research.

But he is clear that this is not about removing lawyers altogether. “We think of AI as a graduate trainee,” he said. “They can do some really amazing things, but they also can make mistakes, and so they require supervision.”

The result, he claims, is a material boost in productivity. Lawhive is seeing “as much as three times” the throughput per lawyer, driven in part by stripping out non-billable work and allowing lawyers to focus on fee-earning tasks.

Expanding in the US

The model varies by market. In the UK, Lawhive operates a platform-style consultancy model alongside employed lawyers.

In the US, it has taken a different route, acquiring an Arizona ABS and building a network of firms across more than 30 states. That allows it to handle origination, file preparation and automation centrally, while local firms deliver the “last mile” of legal advice.

With more than $100 million raised from the likes of Google Ventures and Balderton, the firm is now focused on scaling that model in the US, a market Proner describes as “very, very large” and highly fragmented with around 454,000 firms spread across the country.

The goal is to combine technology and acquisitions to build what he calls a “generational” business, one that can “bring consumer law to everyone and make it accessible to all.”

Listen to the full conversation with Pierre Proner on The Non-Billable Podcast.