A 350-lawyer firm piloted Legora with more than 100 lawyers, ran a security review, then went firm-wide. What the record shows and what it leaves out.
Most law firm AI announcements say a firm has “partnered” with a vendor. The Stoel Rives announcement on October 27 is more useful than most because it describes the path from pilot to decision. The Am Law 200 firm, with about 350 attorneys across ten offices, selected Legora as its firm-wide AI platform after a pilot that reached more than 100 lawyers across several practice groups and offices.
One caution first. The release on Stoel’s site is written as a vendor announcement (“Legora, the agentic operating system for legal professionals, today announced”), lists a media contact at newsPRos, and matches the text on Legora’s newsroom. It is one announcement published in two places, not two independent accounts. Everything below about the pilot comes from that text.
The Pilot and the Security Review
The release says the pilot spanned research, litigation and transactional practice groups. That is a meaningful sample. More than 100 lawyers is roughly 30% or more of the firm’s attorneys, large enough that the result reflects more than a few enthusiasts.
Litigation was one of the most active areas. According to the release, attorneys used Legora to map the facts of a case across large volumes of documents, prepare early drafts of key filings and speed up intake at the start of a new matter. Those are the setup tasks that eat a litigation team’s first weeks, so they are a sensible place to look for time savings.
Legal research was the second focus, and the firm’s library and knowledge management team used the research features directly. The release says several pilot participants raised, unprompted, that Legora returned a smaller number of targeted results rather than a long list to sort through. That is a claim from the vendor’s announcement, and no comparison data is published.
The detail most worth copying is the order of operations. The release says Stoel’s own AI, Privacy and Cybersecurity practice advises corporate clients on vetting AI vendors, and that the firm held Legora to the same standard by running a formal security review before signing.
That matters because security now sits near the top of law firm worries about AI. In the 2026 ILTA Technology Survey, as reported by LawSites, generative AI appeared on the list of firms’ biggest security challenges for the first time and ranked second, behind only user behavior. A firm that uses the same vetting checklist on itself that it sells to clients has an easier time explaining the decision to partners and clients alike.
“Stoel Rives evaluated us rigorously on security and on substance, and chose to bring Legora in across the firm,” said Max Junestrand, Legora’s chief executive and co-founder, in the release.
The firm’s own quote, from Firm Managing Partner Melissa Jones, ties the move to the firm’s strategic plan and client service. It does not cite numbers.
How It Compares With Other October Rollouts
Stoel was not alone this month. Jones Day said on October 22 that lawyers across all its offices, more than 2,500 in 40 offices, will get access to Legora over the coming months, after what the release calls a structured evaluation. The Jones Day deal adds a design partnership on a forthcoming research product and a learning program with King’s College London.
Hogan Lovells Cadwalader went another way. On October 16 it signed agreements with both Harvey and Legora and created an AI Board to decide what to build and what to buy. Its chief executive, Miguel Zaldivar, said, “There is no single AI solution that will meet every need of a modern global law firm.” Bar & Bench carried the same quote.
Stoel’s path is the one most mid-size firms can copy: one platform, a broad pilot and a security review run by people who do that work for clients. In the LawSites summary of ILTA’s survey, 16% of firms said they were using or exploring Legora, while a separate question on products being tested or piloted put Legora at 51%. The write-up does not reconcile the two figures, but either way many firms are somewhere in the middle of the same process.
What the Announcement Leaves Out
The release does not say how many seats Stoel bought, what it pays, when every lawyer will have access, or how the firm will measure success after the pilot. It gives no time savings, accuracy figures or adoption rates. It also does not say whether Stoel compared Legora with other platforms during the pilot or tested Legora alone.
Those are the questions a firm considering a similar move should ask its own pilot to answer: what share of pilot users kept using the tool, which tasks got faster and by how much, and who signs off on the security review when the vendor ships new features.
Common Questions
How big was the Stoel Rives pilot?
More than 100 lawyers across multiple practice groups and offices, according to the release. The firm has about 350 attorneys.
What did lawyers use Legora for during the pilot?
Mainly litigation work, such as mapping case facts, early drafts of filings and matter intake, plus legal research by the library and knowledge management team.
Did the firm publish results from the pilot?
No. The release describes uses and feedback but gives no metrics, pricing or seat counts.
Verdict
Partly Real. The pilot size, practice groups and security review are specific and useful as a template. The outcome claims come only from a vendor-issued release, so treat them as the firm’s and Legora’s view until either publishes numbers.
