Summary
Max Junestrand, CEO and co-founder of Legora, describes his ambition for the company to be the operating system for legal work. He cites a Fortune 100 client that cut contract turnaround time by 90%, saved over $20 million in external litigation and diligence costs, and gave each lawyer back 9.5 hours per week.
Junestrand argues that the legal sector is fundamentally supply constrained, meaning many contracts go unreviewed and many disputes never reach court. AI agents that take a first pass at contracts or handle more of M&A due diligence could help the profession meet demand that today goes unserved.
He also recounts the company’s origin. Early experiments with Google’s BERT proved too difficult, and it was only when GPT-3.5 became available that the idea worked, prompting him to leave university. He compares Legora to a Formula 1 car powered by OpenAI’s steadily improving models, and explains the importance of trust in legal work and of staying AI-native as the company scales, even if that means building sandcastles as the underlying technology shifts. The talk offers a founder’s view of how an AI startup is positioning itself in a high-stakes profession.
📺 Source: OpenAI · Published October 28, 2026
🏷️ Format: Interview
