'AI is a generational opportunity': Legora hires ex-Big Law partner to lead US growth

Legal AI company Legora has hired former Morgan Lewis partner Kyle Poe as VP of legal innovation, as it gears up to take on the world’s largest legal market.

Poe, who specialised in mass product liability litigation, made partner at Morgan Lewis in 2018, he says, on the strength of a matter management system he built with the firm’s tech team. The system gave lawyers a playbook for major cases, an early indication of the product-focused approach he is now bringing to Legora.

Why Legora

Poe says two factors drew him to the role: the pull of 25-year-old CEO and founder Max Junestrand - "an incredibly ambitious person who matches my own ambitions about the impact legal AI can have on the industry" - and the fact that Legora’s platform is already gaining so much traction worldwide. "The company is barely 18 months old and is already a global brand," he says.

Stockholm-headquartered Legora, which offers tools for drafting, research, contract review and document analysis, has signed up a run of big UK and European firms this year, including BCLP, Dentons, Mishcon de Reya, DWF and Taylor Wessing. It is widely seen as the main rival to US-based Harvey, which has raised more than $700 million and recently said it counts nearly half of the Am Law 100 as customers.

US expansion

Legora’s New York office is "expanding massively", Poe says, with a focus on hiring legal engineers - former practising lawyers with around 3-7 years’ post-qualification experience - to develop the product and work directly with law firm clients. "Every AI vendor has learned that adoption is a higher-touch process than anyone expected," he says. "The industry underestimated just how much handholding law firms need to adopt the tech properly."

He adds that while European firms have often been quicker to embrace new technology, the US market could now be at a turning point -"AI is the chance for US firms to catch up."

Defining success

Poe is clear about how he will measure progress in the US, the world’s biggest legal market. "We want to be the market leader in legal AI," he says. Success, he added, is about more than just financial metrics: "Seeing customers win new work with our tools is what motivates me. If we can have customers beat their competitors, that will speak for itself."

Bigger picture

For Poe, AI marks a "generational reordering" moment in the legal industry, similar to the way firms like Skadden vaulted to prominence during the poison pill takeover era of the 1980s.

"There are limited windows of opportunity for firms to get ahead and AI is one of them," he says. "For firms already at the top of the market, it’s a defensive move - adopt it or risk falling behind. For others, it’s a chance to leapfrog competitors."