Legora taps former minister for government push as legal AI moves well beyond law firms

Legal AI companies are expanding their ambitions beyond law firms and corporate in-house teams, targeting governments, regulators and the courts as potential customers.

Legora is the latest to make a push, expanding the role of former Cabinet minister Lucy Frazer KC to lead its partnerships with governments and public agencies globally, starting in the UK and Europe.

Frazer has advised the Swedish legal AI company since July and is also a senior advisor at McKinsey and a board member of an AI data analytics company.

She will work with government legal departments, regulators, local authorities and courts to help them adopt the technology and shape Legora's products around the needs of public sector users.

The former Conservative MP served as a minister across six government departments, including as Justice Minister, Solicitor General and Culture Secretary.

“In government, I worked alongside lawyers, judges and officials under huge pressure and experiencing increasing workloads. I realised that we need to reach for new answers to solve old problems and that can come from technology,” Frazer said.

The opportunity

The move reflects a broader opportunity for legal AI companies, which have spent recent years competing to win over major law firms and corporate legal departments.

Public sector legal teams face many of the same pressures as private practice lawyers, often with fewer resources. In England and Wales, the Crown Court backlog reached a record 80,829 cases at the end of June, more than double its pre-pandemic level.

Legora says its technology is already being used by a national government legal office in the Nordics and an Australian access-to-justice charity supporting pro bono legal work.

Other legal tech companies are making similar moves. In May, Canadian company Clio partnered with US government technology distributor Carahsoft to make its AI-powered software available to public sector legal teams.

Harvey is also targeting government customers, with a dedicated public sector offering. In October, it secured a US federal security certification for handling sensitive government information.

In the UK, energy regulator Ofgem signed a contract for LexisNexis+ AI for its lawyers. LexisNexis also secured a seven-year contract with the US federal judiciary last year to provide legal research services, with the option to access its AI platform.

Demand appears to be growing. A Thomson Reuters survey published in July found that more than a quarter of government legal professionals surveyed were using AI, up from just 5% the previous year.

The need for ongoing support could give well-funded legal AI companies with large teams of legal engineers an advantage in the race to win public sector customers.

“Once adopted civil servants need to be sure that the companies that supply them remain engaged to enable them to implement it and use it to best effect,” Frazer said.

“That is what I want to help bring to the public sector, starting here in the UK and EMEA.”