When Logan Brown made the bold decision to leave her position at Cooley earlier this spring, she did so with a clear purpose—to establish her own enterprise within the rapidly evolving field of legal technology. Her entrepreneurial journey led her to New York City, a metropolis that embodies the energy, ambition, and competitive spirit of both the legal and tech worlds. From her apartment overlooking the Financial District, Brown, who is only thirty years old, has already begun assembling a team of lawyers to join her fledgling venture. Convincing talented attorneys to take the leap has, according to her, not been an arduous task. As she observed over a phone call, the youngest generation of legal professionals is increasingly eager to participate in shaping the industry’s future rather than standing idle as technological transformation sweeps past. To those individuals, New York—with its unparalleled concentration of law firms, corporate headquarters, and capital—is the natural and logical stage from which to make that impact.
This surge of momentum within the legal technology sector has not occurred in isolation. Over the course of the year, legal tech has experienced a dramatic upswing as corporate clients intensified their demands for efficiency and innovation, pressing their law firms to adopt digital tools capable of lowering operational costs while simultaneously improving accuracy and outcomes. The effects of this shift are tangible and visible across New York’s skyline. From the gleaming towers of Midtown to the reimagined loft offices south of Union Square, the transformation is unfolding literally floor by floor. The practical consequence of this evolution is that an increasing number of legal technology startups are choosing to establish their headquarters or key offices in Manhattan, positioning themselves within steps of their most important clients.
One prominent example of this trend is Legora, a Swedish-founded legal tech unicorn that recently announced the signing of a two-floor lease at 838 Broadway, a newly refurbished property just below Union Square. The company, which provides enterprise-grade software solutions to major law firms such as Goodwin and Cleary Gottlieb, has grown rapidly in the wake of a funding round that valued the business at an impressive 1.8 billion dollars. Legora’s new headquarters will serve as both a symbol of prestige and a practical hub for its expanding team.
Since its founding in 2023, Legora has cycled through several office arrangements as its workforce grew, beginning in shared coworking spaces before relocating multiple times to accommodate its increasing need for desks and meeting space. The firm’s internal policy requires all employees to work onsite five days per week, an approach designed to cultivate close collaboration and to project professionalism befitting a company whose clients are among the most elite law firms in the world. Legora’s logic is straightforward yet strategic: to win the confidence of top-tier legal institutions and corporate general counsel, the firm must exist in the very environment those clients inhabit.
According to 2024 statistics from the American Bar Association, New York boasts a remarkable 187,656 licensed lawyers—more than any other state in the union and slightly surpassing California’s total of 175,883. The city is also home to seven of the twenty largest law firms in the United States, while the remaining firms on that list all maintain significant offices within its borders. As Patrick Forquer, Legora’s senior vice president of global revenue, remarked during a Zoom interview, New York stands as the undisputed global capital of legal services. His conclusion is pragmatic: any company aiming to dominate the legal innovation market must first command a presence in this city.
The expansion is not limited to Legora. Harvey, another dominant name in the burgeoning legal tech sector and one of Silicon Valley’s most closely watched startups, has aggressively grown its New York operations. The company now employs approximately one hundred and fifty people in the city. In October, Harvey announced a landmark ten-year lease at One Madison Avenue in Midtown, tripling its New York office space to an impressive ninety-seven thousand square feet. By contrast, Legora’s lease encompasses more than twenty-seven thousand square feet for a five-year term. Meanwhile, Clio—the Vancouver-based legal software powerhouse recently valued at over five hundred million dollars—has begun scouring Manhattan’s commercial real estate market for its own suitable location. Spellbook, a company specializing in contract analysis tools tailored for small and midsized firms, is likewise seeking a New York address, according to CEO Scott Stevenson.
Several younger startups have already embraced the city as home base. Crosby and Covenant, for instance, provide direct legal services rather than software products and have chosen to plant their flags in New York. Hebbia, backed by the distinguished venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, has followed a similar course. Focused on serving investors and legal professionals alike, Hebbia now employs roughly one hundred and thirty people spread across its global offices, which include a recent addition in San Francisco’s South of Market district. Cofounder and CEO George Sivulka explained in an email that for Hebbia, launching in New York was never a matter of debate—it was, in his words, the only viable option. Immediate proximity to clients means that potential buyers make decisions more swiftly and provide feedback almost in real time, a dynamic that can prove crucial for a startup aiming to refine its products and accelerate adoption.
The practical advantages of location remain an important consideration. Forquer of Legora mentioned that he often pedals across the city on a Citi Bike to attend investor or client meetings, taking full advantage of the city’s compact geography. Yet logistics are only part of the equation. Talent acquisition is equally central to the strategy of these companies. New York offers unparalleled access to precisely the type of lawyers that legal tech founders need—attorneys with firsthand experience in complex legal matters who can assist in designing, refining, and marketing software tailored to the realities of professional practice.
Among the entrepreneurs capitalizing on this abundance of expertise is Jen Berrent, a veteran corporate attorney who formerly served as WeWork’s chief legal officer. Having built her career entirely within New York’s demanding legal environment, Berrent has turned her attention to entrepreneurship. Her company, Covenant, focuses on reviewing fund documentation on behalf of private market investors—a task traditionally delegated to established law firms. Unlike some Silicon Valley startups, Covenant has opted not to develop proprietary large language models, a choice that would have necessitated relocating to San Francisco to recruit high-end machine learning engineers. Instead, Berrent structured her firm around a lean, agile team of Big Law alumni who employ Covenant’s proprietary software, which operates on top of platforms built by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. The goal is simple yet innovative: to accelerate turnaround times while maintaining the precision clients expect. As Berrent succinctly put it, victory within a specialized market depends on mastery of its domain, and in this vertical, such expertise resides squarely in New York. Appropriately, Covenant’s offices occupy a shared workspace in Midtown, reflecting both its startup ethos and its founder’s connection to the city’s business community.
Investment capital is flowing into the legal technology arena at an unprecedented rate, driving increased hiring and fueling the dreams of countless young attorneys searching for purpose beyond billable hours. These junior lawyers, often weary from the relentless pace of traditional firm life, now find themselves presented with multiple opportunities to contribute to an emerging industry that promises both intellectual engagement and financial participation through stock options. The allure of leaving a conventional law firm for a startup is no longer fringe; it has become a respectable and strategic career move.
Harvey, for instance, has sought to differentiate itself not only through transformative technology but also through workplace culture. Since opening its initial New York office in 2023, the company has introduced a suite of employee benefits designed to attract and retain top talent—from free daily lunches and forthcoming wellness and fertility programs scheduled for rollout in 2026, to the promise of four weeks of fully paid leave after four years of service. Similarly, Norm Ai, a company founded by John Nay, has entered the competition for skilled candidates. Norm Ai builds no-code tools to assist compliance departments and legal teams in streamlining their work processes, and recently it unveiled plans to launch an independent law firm that will serve clients directly, including major corporations such as Blackstone.
While most startups rely on conventional marketing tactics—sponsoring booths at conferences or advertising on billboards across downtown—Nay’s firm has taken a more personalized approach. In a bid to appeal to Big Law associates seeking fresh opportunities, Norm Ai has begun hosting informal networking events in New York City bars, transforming relaxed social settings into recruitment venues. The strategy underscores how fiercely companies are contending for legal and technical expertise in a market that is dynamic, competitive, and increasingly defined by its synergy between tradition and innovation.
For those wishing to share insights or leads about the swiftly developing legal technology scene, the reporter can be contacted at mrussell@businessinsider.com or via Signal at @MeliaRussell.01. It is recommended to use a personal, nonwork device and email account, following the publication’s guide for secure information sharing.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-home-of-legal-tech-ai-lawyers-2025-11
