Legal Technology Founders Making Business Law More Accessible and Efficient

Legal work is essential to building a company, but it can also become a source of delay, uncertainty, and expense. Entrepreneurs need help choosing business structures, protecting intellectual property, hiring employees, reviewing agreements, meeting regulatory requirements, and managing commercial relationships. 

Technology cannot remove the need for qualified lawyers. It can, however, make routine legal processes easier to understand, organize, and complete. Digital platforms are helping businesses prepare standard documents, find specialized attorneys, manage contracts, research legal questions, and automate repetitive administrative work.

Several founders have played important roles in this transformation. Some began by making basic legal services available online. Others are developing artificial intelligence for sophisticated law firms and corporate departments. Together, their companies show how legal technology is changing access to business law in the United States.

Brian Liu, Brian Lee, Edward Hartman, and Robert Shapiro: Bringing Legal Services Online

LegalZoom was founded in 2001 by Brian Liu, Brian Lee, Edward Hartman, and attorney Robert Shapiro. At a time when most legal services were still delivered through traditional offices, the founders recognized that the internet could make common legal processes more convenient.

The platform became known for helping people prepare documents for business formation, trademarks, estate planning, and other routine matters. It has since expanded to include registered-agent services, compliance assistance, attorney access, and additional tools for small businesses.

LegalZoom did not eliminate the role of lawyers. Instead, its founders separated standardized legal tasks from situations that require personal advice. An entrepreneur with a straightforward need could begin through a guided online process, while someone facing a dispute or complicated ownership arrangement could seek professional assistance.

That distinction helped introduce a new model for legal access. Small-business owners did not always have to begin by scheduling an office appointment without knowing the likely cost or process. They could first understand the available service, review the price, and decide whether additional support was necessary.

LegalZoom is now a publicly traded company led by a different executive team. However, its founders helped make online legal services a widely recognised business category.

Charley Moore: Building Rocket Lawyer Around Everyday Legal Needs

Attorney Charley Moore founded Rocket Lawyer after seeing how difficult it could be for entrepreneurs and individuals to obtain affordable legal assistance. His company created an online platform where users can prepare legal documents, sign them electronically, form a business, and connect with attorneys.

Rocket Lawyer’s model is particularly relevant to small companies that encounter legal needs throughout the year. A business may need an independent-contractor agreement one month, a nondisclosure agreement the next, and guidance from an attorney when a customer fails to pay.

Providing documents through a digital platform can make the first step less intimidating. Users can answer questions in plain language, prepare a draft, and determine whether their situation requires individual legal advice.

Moore retired from the company in March 2025 after nearly two decades of leadership, according to Rocket Lawyer’s announcement. His influence can still be seen in the company’s efforts to make everyday legal services more accessible.

The larger lesson from Rocket Lawyer is that accessibility involves more than reducing prices. People must also understand what service they need, how long it may take, and when a standard form is not sufficient.

Basha Rubin and Mirra Levitt: Giving Businesses Flexible Access to Legal Talent

Not every legal challenge can be handled through automated documents. Companies often need experienced professionals, but they may not require another permanent employee or a large law firm for every project.

Basha Rubin and Mirra Levitt co-founded Priori to create a more flexible way for corporate legal departments to find and manage outside legal talent. The two met while attending Yale Law School and launched the company in 2013.

Priori’s marketplace connects legal departments with vetted lawyers for projects, temporary support, and specialized requirements. The platform also helps organisations work with external law firms and monitor their legal expenses.

This model addresses a common problem for growing businesses. A company may need an attorney with knowledge of privacy law, employment matters, commercial agreements, or a particular geographic market. Finding that person through an established network can take considerable time. A structured marketplace can make expertise easier to compare and engage.

Priori aims to make it easier for businesses to find, hire, and manage legal professionals. Yale Law School also identifies Rubin as the company’s chief executive officer and co-founder.

Rubin and Levitt are not attempting to replace legal judgment. Their work focuses on improving how organizations locate and use that judgment. This flexibility allows general counsel and senior executives to choose a lawyer whose experience and fees suit the complexity of each assignment.

Jason Boehmig and Cai GoGwilt: Moving Contracts Into a Digital Workflow

Contracts influence revenue, purchasing, employment, partnerships, data use, and risk. Yet many companies have historically managed agreements through email attachments, spreadsheets, shared folders, and manual reminders.

Ironclad founders Jason Boehmig and Cai GoGwilt saw an opportunity to create a more organized system. Boehmig brought experience as a corporate attorney, while GoGwilt contributed an engineering background. They founded Ironclad in 2014 to help businesses create and manage contracts through a digital workflow.

The platform supports contract creation, review, approval, signature, storage, and analysis. It gives legal, sales, finance, procurement, and operations teams a shared process for managing agreements, replacing long and unstructured email chains.

This can improve more than administrative efficiency. When contract information is structured, leaders can identify renewal dates, payment terms, obligations, approval delays, and areas of commercial risk. Legal teams may also create templates and approval rules for routine agreements, allowing lawyers to spend more time on unusual or high-value negotiations.

Ironclad’s official company history explains that the business began when an attorney and an engineer came together to bring contracts into the digital age.

Their partnership demonstrates why effective legal technology requires both professional and technical knowledge. Software developers need to understand how lawyers evaluate risk, while legal professionals must be willing to redesign familiar processes.

Jake Heller and Laura Safdie: Advancing AI-Assisted Legal Research

Casetext co-founders Jake Heller and Laura Safdie were practicing attorneys before becoming legal technology entrepreneurs. Heller also had a background in programming and had built tools to make his own legal work more efficient.

Casetext initially focused on improving access to legal research. The company later developed CoCounsel, an artificial-intelligence assistant designed for tasks such as document review, legal research, drafting, and information extraction.

In 2023, Thomson Reuters acquired Casetext for $650 million. The acquisition brought the technology together with Thomson Reuters’ established legal information and research products. 

Casetext’s journey illustrates an important requirement for legal AI: access to dependable source material. A system that produces a quick answer is not useful if the answer is inaccurate or not verified. Legal professionals need citations, supporting documents, and a clear path for reviewing the work.

For business leaders, this is an important distinction. AI should help a legal team examine information faster, but final responsibility remains with qualified professionals.

Winston Weinberg and Gabriel Pereyra: Developing AI for Complex Legal Work

Harvey represents a newer generation of legal technology. Winston Weinberg, a former lawyer, and Gabriel Pereyra, an AI researcher, founded the company in 2022 after experimenting with how large language models could handle legal questions.

The platform is designed for law firms and corporate legal departments. It supports research, document analysis, drafting, and workflows involving large collections of legal information.

The founders’ different backgrounds have shaped the product. Weinberg understood how attorneys work and where time is often lost. Pereyra brought the technical knowledge needed to adapt AI to professional legal tasks.

Harvey has attracted major law firms, corporate legal teams, and technology investors. Reuters reported that the company raised $100 million in 2024 to support further development. As a private business, more recent figures reported about its valuation and adoption should be understood as company statements or information attributed to unnamed sources unless independently confirmed.

Harvey’s rapid growth indicates strong interest in legal AI, but it also raises a difficult question: How can firms achieve greater speed without weakening accuracy, confidentiality, or professional judgment?

Legal AI Still Requires Human Responsibility

The American Bar Association addressed this issue in Formal Opinion 512. Its guidance states that lawyers using generative AI must consider duties involving competence, client communication, confidentiality, supervision, and reasonable fees.

The ABA also warns that AI can generate inaccurate information. Attorneys remain responsible for reviewing outputs and protecting sensitive client data. The technology does not transfer professional accountability from a lawyer to a software provider.

Businesses should apply similar care when selecting a legal platform. Leaders need to understand where information is stored, how AI systems use submitted documents, who can access company data, and whether generated work is reviewed by a licensed professional.

A standard document platform may be suitable for a simple filing but not for a complex financing agreement. An AI-generated summary may save time, yet it should not be treated as a final legal opinion.

Making Business Law Easier to Navigate

The founders behind LegalZoom, Rocket Lawyer, Priori, Ironclad, Casetext, and Harvey have approached legal access from different directions. Some have reduced the effort required to prepare routine documents. Others have improved access to attorneys, organized contract operations, or developed tools that help legal professionals analyze information.

Their companies show that accessibility does not mean removing lawyers from business decisions. It means reducing unnecessary friction so that professional expertise is available where it creates the greatest value.

For CEOs and founders, legal technology can support clearer processes and the use of limited resources. The strongest results will come from combining efficient software with careful human review. When that balance is maintained, business law becomes easier to manage without sacrificing the judgment and accountability that protect the company.