Legal tech companies make a play for more sports deals
Some things just go together. Fans and foam fingers. Beer and hot dogs. Sports and legal technology?
While the latter once seemed like an unlikely pairing, several leading legal tech companies have inked multiyear sponsorship deals with professional sports teams in the last couple of years. The partnerships span the NHL, the MLB and the NFL, and their logos now feature prominently on jerseys and helmets and throughout team stadiums.
Joining mainstream consumer brands in securing sports sponsorships could be a way to stand out in a crowded field, where hundreds of their competitors also are offering artificial intelligence tools to lawyers and law firms.
“AI is fast moving, and there are a lot of players emerging,” says Stuart Shingler, the vice president of marketing at Legora, a collaborative legal AI platform based in Stockholm. “We have a great track record and a great team, but we can’t assume we would be in every room and every conversation if we didn’t also invest in ensuring brand awareness in what is otherwise a very, very busy space.”
According to the company, it has increased from 40 to 400 team members and recently announced plans to expand its presence in multiple markets, including in the United States. It also recently recently raised $550 million in Series D funding, putting its valuation at $5.55 billion.
Legora opened its first U.S. office in New York City in March 2025. The following year, it unveiled a multiyear partnership with the New York Yankees and the team’s slugger, Aaron Judge, which centers on “what it means to be elite and at the top of your game,” Shingler says.
As part of its new partnership, Legora’s logo appears on the “Judge’s Chambers,” a fan section dedicated to the superstar in Yankee Stadium, Shingler says. It also appears in the outfield and on rotation behind the home plate.
“The New York Yankees are such an iconic brand,” Shingler says. “And they also happen to have a captain called Judge? It was just too good to not pursue.”
While creative word play helped seal the deal for Legora, which recently launched another brand campaign featuring actor Jude Law, Shingler cautions against expecting more collaborations with people with law-related names.
“It’s been fun to start out this way, but it won’t necessarily carry on this way,” says Shingler, who adds that Legora also has a long-term partnership with Swedish professional golfer Ludvig Åberg. He wears the company’s logo on his left sleeve during competition.
Power play
When it comes to this recent spate of legal tech and sports partnerships, Reagan Attle, the chief marketing officer at Clio, which is also an advertiser with the ABA Journal, says it was the cloud-based practice management software company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, that got the ball rolling.
In September 2024, the company announced that it would be the first-ever official away jersey partner for the Vancouver Canucks hockey team. Starting with the 2024 NHL season and for several more years, Clio’s logo will appear on every Canucks jersey during away games.
“Partnering with the Canucks was a natural extension of how we invest in this city,” says Attle, referencing Clio’s work with the University of British Columbia and other community commitments. “It’s also just been a lot of fun for our customers and our prospects.”
Sponsorships are an extension of Clio’s mission, which is “to transform the legal industry,” Attle adds.
In May, the company said it surpassed $500 million in annual recurring revenue, which followed its $1 billion acquisition of vLex, a legal intelligence and global research platform that includes Vincent AI, and a $500 million Series G round led by New Enterprise Associates. It is now valued at $5 billion.
“We’re making significant bets on legal AI that fundamentally changes how lawyers run their firms, serve their clients and practice law,” Attle says.
The 8am Club, which is “an always-on hospitality suite,” is the “linchpin of the relationship,” says Nate Skinner, the chief marketing and revenue officer at 8am, formerly known as AffiniPay. (Photo courtesy of 8am)
A game changer
In addition to signaling ambition and success, there are other strategies at play when it comes to legal tech companies’ pursuit of sports sponsorships.
After its rebrand last year, 8am sought more value-in-kind partnerships to create awareness of its new identity and bring added benefit to its customers, says Nate Skinner, the chief marketing and revenue officer at 8am. Formerly known as AffiniPay, 8am is the parent company to a suite of products designed to help lawyers and accountants, including MyCase, LawPay, CasePeer and DocketWise.
8am, which has headquarters in Austin, Texas, and San Diego, identified that Florida has one of the fastest-growing lawyer populations and talked with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers about developing a partnership that went beyond logos on uniforms, Skinner says.
The company announced in April that it would be the official professional services partner of the team and receive naming rights for one of Raymond James Stadium’s two premium lounge seating sections.
“We wanted to do something that gave us visibility with our audience in a market that has our customers and prospective customers in it with a brand that they know already,” Skinner says. “You put 8am next to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and it’s like, now, I’ve got a relationship that I can understand.”
The 8am Club, which is “an always-on hospitality suite,” is the “linchpin of the relationship,” Skinner adds.
Any fan can buy tickets to sit there, but it also is a place where 8am can host its customers, partners and employees. It operates not just during the Buccaneers home games but for all concerts and other events that happen at the stadium throughout the year.
“For us, spending money on something like this needs to be tangible and have a material benefit, and where that benefit lies is in our customers’ experience,” Skinner says. “That’s really the root of why we did this.”
8am’s partnership with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers also follows a successful year, in which the company increased its annual recurring revenue by 24%. According to 8am’s year-end report, it now supports more than 260,000 professionals with a 91% growth rate over the past three years.
A new playbook
In the past year, at least two other legal tech companies announced partnerships in the professional sports arena.
Filevine, a software company specializing in cloud-based case management for the legal industry, became in 2025 the official helmet partner for the Utah Mammoth, an NHL team based in Salt Lake City.
Meanwhile, Harvey AI, which designs AI tools for firms and in-house legal teams, has secured multiple multiyear sports sponsorships. This includes being the official legal AI partner of the Golden State Warriors, the Chicago Cubs and the Fulham Football Club. It is also the first “official legal assistant” of the U.S. Open.
While legal tech companies are just securing their first sports deals, other technology companies have had these arrangements for a long time, notes Skinner, who previously worked at Oracle, Salesforce and Amazon Web Services.
“They’re not new to the software and tech industry, but they are kind of new to the legal tech industry,” he says.
These deals—described by Shingler as more of a “B2C” play, or a business-to-consumer play—also could point to a move by legal tech companies to reach beyond the legal industry.
“Yes, we’re selling to legal teams and lawyers, but they don’t exist in a vacuum,” Shingler says. “They are there for the benefit of their clients and their communities and the people that they serve.”
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