Legally smarter

Unless you married one, talking to a lawyer is never good news. Legal disputes take years to settle, with high labor intensity on the lawyer’s side and time and money intensity on the client side. Lawyers are, we may like it or not, needed, as they help institutions to execute the principles of the law into the real world. The incarnation of the law into life is what we usually call justice. Can AI help lawyers be better, faster, cheaper (for the client), while “translating” in more clear terms, for clients and the public, the values and principles of legislation. Can AI come to the rescue?

This is why we talk to Viktor von Essen, Co-Founder and CEO at Libra, a German start-up aiming who wants to revolutionize the legal working world through a cutting-edge AI-powered workspace. Libra empowers legal professionals, enhances the efficiency, accuracy, and productivity of legal work, and gives lawyers more space to focus on strategic thinking and client advocacy. In short: happier clients, faster outcomes, and lawyers doing what they do best – guiding people through difficult moments with expertise and empathy.

Viktor, tell us about you.

Viktor von Essen: I have always been fascinated by the interplay of language, logic, and structure that defines the world of law. I studied law at Bucerius Law School in Germany and at Oxford University, and later worked as a trial lawyer, handling complex business disputes. Even as part of a top litigation team, I saw how much of legal work remains labor-intensive – bound by manual, repetitive tasks. I have a strong interest in technology and wanted to use it to streamline legal processes, relieve pressure on resources, and help clients get better results, faster. This interest eventually led me to upskill by taking computer science courses at Harvard alongside my work, and in 2023, to start Libra on the Merantix Campus in Berlin. We went from a basic prototype to a fully functional digital workspace for lawyers in just a short time.

Let’s go to Libra. Tell us a bit about the startup. 

Viktor von Essen: We have grown rapidly in the last two years, reaching an annual recurring revenue of EUR 3 million, making us one of the fastest-scaling startups in Europe. Our aim is to make legal processes more accessible, transparent, and streamlined. With our AI-powered workspace, we help legal professionals make better decisions and achieve superior results for their clients. For us, artificial intelligence is not just a buzzword. It’s the key to making the legal system more just, more efficient, and ultimately better for everyone.

You are helping lawyers now. Are you going to replace them? Is AI killing the legal profession?

Viktor von Essen: The legal industry increasingly sees us as both a transformative ally and a disruptive influence. By equipping lawyers with advanced technology, we enable them to apply their expertise where it adds the most value, while AI efficiently automates routine processes. Earlier generations of legal AI lacked true legal reasoning capabilities, partly due to limited training data, and struggled with the nuanced, domain-specific complexities of legal work. Today, next-generation AI solutions are transforming the profession – not by replacing lawyers, but by streamlining automatable processes and enhancing what truly requires human judgment. Routine tasks like invoice management are now standardly digitized, and more complex legal functions are progressively gaining from automation.

However, when it comes to strategic advice and building trusting advisory relationships, nothing can replace the human factor. True strategic thinking, creativity, and sound judgment remain beyond the reach of machines.

Tell us about the tech and your scope.

Viktor von Essen: Our platform combines multiple AI models, each customized for specific tasks. We complement these technologies with our expertise, legal data, and workflow know-how. Currently, we focus on Europe, where we are approved in 12 jurisdictions, with planned stepwise expansion. While our operations are European based, our solutions are designed to be globally accessible and scalable, serving lawyers and legal teams worldwide.

What’s the future of your space? 

Viktor von Essen: We really want to improve the whole system for the better. The ultimate goal should be to reduce complexity, empower lawyers, and lower the barriers to justice. AI is the most powerful tool at our disposal to achieve this. If we succeed, everyone – from clients to legal professionals to lawmakers – will benefit.

AI can for sure help us get faster and cheaper time to settlement or agreement. Making sense of the way people dispute and settle, with the support of “augmented” lawyers can also capture enough data on the “what” and “how” of the laws, to feedback some of that insight into legislative bodies, so that AI can support the legislative hands themselves to shape better, shorter and more fit laws and regulations. We will need to be legally smarter, both in front of a judge andat the Parliament, too.