Latent Space · Nov 2, 2026 · 1h 7m · 61m saved
With Jacob Lauritzen, CTO of Legora
Legora now runs on about 100 engineers, and Jacob Lauritzen, the company's CTO, still says that isn't enough. Jacob told Latent Space's swyx and Basil Chatha of Forward Deployed that the legal-AI company he helps run cannot read a single trace of what its own agent does for a client, because the work product belongs to the law firm's client, not to Legora or even the law firm.
"Legora can't read a single trace of what its agent does for a lawyer. The data belongs to the law firm's clients. How do you build and test an agent when you can't see its work?" — framing stated in the episode's own show notes
Jacob previously founded Firmnav, a company later acquired, before joining Legora (Y Combinator, 2024) as CTO.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 67 minutes of audio, 7 minutes of reading.
Here are the 5 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
Legora grew from a Stockholm basement assistant into an agent with about 100 engineers, and Jacob still "feels like we're way too small"
Legora's "Tabular Review" feature name is now used industry-wide, including by "Claude for legal"
The company can't see its own agent's traces, so it tests on internal environments modeled on customer work
"Buying a law firm" is one option Jacob says "some people are considering" to get real training data
AI is forcing law firms to build durable, firm-specific IP instead of relying only on partners who can walk out the door
1. From Assistant to Agent
Jacob described Legora's origin as a simple tool for drafting and editing legal documents, built by a small team using ChatGPT and Swedish law. The product has since become an agent that drafts and edits Word files, runs document analysis, and coordinates work between lawyers, clients and other agents through three products: Lists, a Linear-style tracker; Intake, for client collaboration; and Portal, for lawyer-to-lawyer and lawyer-to-agent work.
Legora switched from "assistant" to "agent" framing about a year before this interview, Jacob says
"We basically had to switch from the assistant to the agent... I wanna say a year ago probably." — Jacob Lauritzen
The company is now roughly 100 engineers, which Jacob said still "feels like we're way too small." One of Legora's features, Tabular Review, bulk extraction and review across many agreements at once, has become a term of art other legal-AI products now use, name included.
"One of our features is called Tabular Review, which is... now a name that's being used in industry, and we're very happy to see Claude for legal using our terminology for what they're building." — Jacob Lauritzen
