Investment into legaltech has been a major media narrative over the past couple of years.   A combination of new kids on the block transforming what has historically been seen as a traditional sector (probably a little unfairly), massive outlays by established legal players, and forays into the legal world by big tech players have all contributed to not just more money splashing around, but more headlines, more noise, and more complex stakeholder perceptions.   We analysed a representative sample of mainstream and specialist legal and tech media titles and found a more than 200% increase in stories mentioning legaltech – and its various synonyms – between Q1 2024 and Q1 2026.    Fundraising stories represent only a small proportion of the overall legaltech media discourse. However, for legaltech startups and scale ups, investment rounds are critical touchpoints that help to build brand salience and longer term reputational capital.   The challenge is cutting through, and navigating the communications and reputational challenges associated with significantly increased media scrutiny – ranging from courtroom hallucinations to regulatory developments.   In 2024 mentions of fundraising rounds – Seed or Series – appeared in around 10% of media stories referencing legaltech. This dropped significantly to 4% in 2025. Even though fundraising mentions increased in pure volume terms, overall legaltech reporting has risen to such a height that it is easy for stories to become diluted.  Legaltechs absolutely need to leverage important milestones that enhance credibility and build brand presence – including fundraising, product launches etc. But startups, and founders, can quickly become a supporting cast on the main stage – a stage which is dominated by a couple of big and noisy actors – rather than media stars in and of themselves.   The good news, though, is that there is real media appetite to hear where legaltech investment money is flowing – from where and to whom.   2025 saw record investment levels in the sector according to Crunchbase data – around $4bn globally – and this was mirrored by high levels of media attention. 2026 has started in a similar vein, with reporting referencing legaltech fundraising hitting a quarterly high point in Q1.  Between Q1 2024 and Q1 2026 we found around 650 stories in the analysed media sample which mentioned legaltech fundraising.  Early stage funding rounds – Seed and Series A – have the highest volume of mentions, with later stage rounds mentioned far less often. This may be stating the obvious, but this is of course at least partly due to the fact that not all start ups reach, say, Series D - let alone beyond. Or, if they do, the journey has a longer duration – even though some legaltech players have scaled incredibly rapidly. That 2025 saw more reporting across all rounds than in 2024 shows just how dynamic the sector has been in recent times. There is another important takeaway here, though, which is that the media are interested in the journey. Securing visibility early on and continuing to build and showcase momentum over time helps builds brand prominence. Two brand names dominate this discourse.  Between them, Harvey and Legora command more than a third of the media attention on legaltech investment (measured by volume of brand mentions in legaltech fundraising stories).  This isn’t just a numbers game. Yes, financial heft helps grab headlines and, yes, Harvey and Legora have each attracted huge levels of investment. But their share of attention quite heavily outweighs their share of capital – with other big players playing second fiddle in media terms.   Clio, for example, represented the largest volume of capital movement in 2025 – around 14% of total market share according to Legal Complex. However, it was mentioned in only 1.3% of legaltech media stories. By comparison, Legora represented about 3% of total funding in 2025, but was mentioned in more than double the number of stories as Clio.  Recruiting celebrities for campaigns has been an interesting tactic deployed by the tegaltechs at loggerheads, but the media tends to be pretty sceptical about these kinds of things. Mentions of the Jude Law and Gabriel Macht campaigns in legaltech stories pale into insignificance when compared to the (relevant) media profiles of Harvey and Legora’s founders.   Of course, these campaigns have other targets beyond media coverage – and plenty of social traffic will no doubt have been generated (positive and negative – probably doesn’t matter too much in the drive for engagement ). But, as far as the press goes, visible and engaged leadership is a significant driver of attention.    The PR dominance of the ‘big two’ is being challenged though, reflecting broader changes within legaltech and an emerging reputational threat for legaltech founders and their businesses.   In 2025 OpenAI (Chat GPT) was referenced in more media stories mentioning legaltech than Harvey or Legora – though Harvey ran it close. In 2026 a new narrative has emerged – that centred on Anthropic, and the launch of Claude for Legal. In the first five months of 2026 alone, mentions of Anthropic in legaltech stories doubled compared to 2025 – bearing in mind the plugin launched in May this is a huge uptick.   In the face of this insurgency, bespoke platforms are gearing up for battle as the debate over buy vs build rages – and communications, how legaltechs tell the story of their value and difference, is a key tactical intervention.   Claude’s legal agent, Microsoft’s built-in legal agent for Word, and OpenAI hiring the co-founder of Ironclad as it pushes into the legal sector vertical all contribute to a dynamic, if challenging, narrative landscape for legaltechs. You can add to that the competitive ‘threat’ from Big Law - Kirkland & Ellis setting aside its $500m AI development war chest is a statement of intent, and one that understandably grabbed headlines.   The legaltech sector is generating huge excitement and opportunity, but with competitive threats from all sides, potential consolidation as the market matures, and a media poised to pounce on any signals of bubble-bursting potential, the reputation landscape is shifting and will require nuanced comms navigation.   Top 10 media outlets for legaltech fundraising stories   By volume of stories mentioning legaltech funding rounds January 2025 – June 2026. (Disclaimer: Paywalls and crawler policies may limit data obtainable from some relevant publishers).     

1. Artificial Lawyer 
2. Crunchbase 
3. Law.com 
4. Business Insider 
5. Tech.EU 
6. Sifted 
7. Legal IT Insider 
8. TechCrunch 
9. The Global Legal Post 
10. BusinessCloud