A field guide to the companies teaching machines to read contracts, run legal research and draft memos. From Sweden's $5.6B Legora to Thomson Reuters' $650M CoCounsel bet, the AI legal tech race pits enterprise platforms, research incumbents and word-processor plug-ins against each other for the same prize: the billable hour. Here is who leads, who they serve and the numbers that separate hype from traction.
Michael McBride is a General Partner at GV (Google Ventures), where he leads early-stage investments in enterprise technology, AI, and open-source-powered companies. A Stanford-trained mechanical engineer who spent three decades building high-growth startups before pivoting to venture capital, McBride brought operational credibility from five years as GitLab's CRO - where he oversaw a 100x+ revenue run-rate expansion before its 2021 IPO. He joined GV in December 2023 and quickly became one of its most active dealmakers, leading GV's $319 million Cribl Series E - the firm's second-largest investment ever.