Legora’s alumni are already building legal AI companies of their own

Legora only launched its legal AI platform two years ago, but its alumni are already starting companies of their own.

At least three former employees are behind two recently launched businesses.

Michelle Cotter, Legora's former director of engagement, has launched legal tech startup Juritas, a contract intelligence platform.

Meanwhile, former Legora employees Cem Ucan, a founding legal engineer, and Kieran John Keenan, a technical staffer, have teamed up to build Athena, an AI-native law firm backed by Andreessen Horowitz and developed through its startup incubator.

The moves are early signs of something familiar in technology but still relatively new to legal AI - successful startups beginning to produce their own generation of founders.

Though Legora only officially launched in 2024, the company has expanded from around 40 to more than 400 employees in roughly a year, creating a growing pool of lawyers and engineers with experience building and selling AI products for the legal industry.

Going it alone

Cotter is betting on a problem on the in-house side of the market. After stints at Revolut and Legora, she founded Juritas to help businesses understand commitments scattered across contracts, policies and other documents. The Stockholm startup emerged from stealth this summer and is now closing a €1 million pre-seed round.

Ucan and Keenan left Legora to build California-based Athena, a law firm designed around AI. Ucan previously worked on the innovation team at Baker McKenzie before becoming a legal engineer at Legora.

The pair teamed up with lawyers Karen Abesamis, a former corporate and M&A partner at Morgan Lewis, and Juan B. Soto, formerly of Lowenstein Sandler, to build the firm.

Athena charges fixed fees and says partners will lead every matter, supported by AI. It is initially focused on M&A, venture capital financings and commercial real estate.

A founder pipeline

Companies such as Legora and Harvey have spent heavily to recruit people who sit close to both the technology and the way top law firms operate. As those companies grow, they are also creating a new pool of talent with the experience and networks to build businesses of their own.

Juritas and Athena may be early examples of what follows, with people leaving the first generation of legal AI companies to build the next.