Legal tech · Industry brief

Clio passed $500 million in annual recurring revenue while remaining profitable. Harvey's annualized revenue reached approximately $350 million, up from roughly $190 million earlier in the year, with the company adding more than $100 million in net-new ARR in a single recent quarter. Legora's ARR reached approximately $150 million, demonstrating more than 50% year-over-year ARR growth for seven consecutive quarters across more than 1,500 law firms and in-house teams in over 50 markets. Legal Tech companies are executing an acquisition wave to control more of the lawyer's workflow. Legora acquired at least five companies this year including businesses in legal research, regulation monitoring, real-estate intelligence and litigation analysis. Harvey made three acquisitions including Benchmark to extend into asset management. Established players also moved aggressively: Clio completed its $1 billion acquisition of vLex, Wolters Kluwer paid $500 million for Brightflag and $105 million for Libra, RELX acquired French legal-AI company Doctrine, and Relativity bought AI drafting startup Gavel. Legal Tech startup funding reached $2.2 billion so far this year, down from a record $4.6 billion last year, with capital concentrated among leaders—Legora raised $550 million in Series D plus $50 million, while Harvey raised $200 million at an $11 billion valuation.

Hogan Lovells completed a merger with Cadwalader, described as the largest merger in the history of the legal sector. Following this combination, Guillermo Larrea, who joined Hogan Lovells in January 2025 from Jones Day, now leads the firm's Latin American Compliance Committee with an integrated practice spanning five partners and ten associates. The merger expanded the firm's compliance capabilities by combining existing talent in investigations, anti-corruption, fraud, money laundering, sanctions, privacy, cybersecurity, data protection, and artificial intelligence, while adding Cadwalader's portfolio of financial sector clients and specialists in financial regulation, investigations, and disputes, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom. Hogan Lovells' legal-tech company, Eltemate, provides clients with AI tools, forensic technology, background checks, and predictive data analytics to strengthen legal and regulatory analysis.