More lawyers are leaving established firms to start their own, often using artificial intelligence to do the work of a traditional firm with far less overhead. Pamir Ehsas is one of them.
Until last year, Ehsas was putting in late nights and weekends as a junior lawyer at a large Norwegian law firm, advising clients such as OpenAI on contracts, privacy, and other legal matters. He quit to start Moritz, a law firm and software startup that builds software for its own lawyers.
Earlier this year, Moritz set out to raise a $3 million seed round. It ended up closing $9 million, one week before graduating from Y Combinator. The startup accelerator wrote a fresh check alongside Urban Innovation Fund, 20VC, and Inception Fund, a Swedish investor that bet early on the legal software giant Legora.
The round also drew a star-studded roster of angel investors, including founders of Reddit, Instacart, Cruise, Dropbox, Gusto, and Runway, as well as employees of ElevenLabs, Lovable, and OpenAI.
Ehsas gave Business Insider an exclusive look at the pitch deck he used to fundraise. Some slides were redacted so that the deck could be shared publicly.
The deck paints Moritz, then called Arcline, as a challenger to traditional law firms — one built to offer routine legal work for startups and corporate clients faster and at lower cost.
Its software helps its lawyers draft and review documents, such as offer letters, nondisclosure agreements, and sales contracts.
Moritz is part of a new class of startups rethinking how legal services are delivered. Y Combinator backed three such law firms in its last batch. The LegalTech Fund, meanwhile, started an accelerator to help companies that compete head-on with law firms.
One of the furthest along is Crosby, a Sequoia-backed law firm and startup that provides basic legal services to other startups.
To be sure, Moritz’s deck captures the promise of tech-driven legal services more than it delivers on the proof. It still has to prove it can use software to make legal work more efficient without sacrificing the quality and judgment clients expect from lawyers.
“This is why we have a very selective recruitment process,” Ehsas said, adding that the company rejects “about 99%” of lawyers who apply for jobs.
Read the pitch deck.
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