In less than two years, Viktor von Essen has taken an idea from the courtroom to one of Europe’s fastest-growing LegalTech companies.
His startup Libra, co-founded with Danish software engineer Dr. Bo Tranberg, has already surpassed €2 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) within its first year on the market – and is used by more than 9,000 lawyers across 650 law firms and legal departments.
From Freshfields to Founding Libra
Viktor’s journey began far from the world of startups. After studying law at Bucerius Law School and the University of Oxford, he spent nearly a decade as a litigator in international arbitration, including at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, where he was named to the JUVE Top 40 under 40.
During this time, he saw first-hand how much of a lawyer’s day was consumed by painstaking, repetitive tasks. Truckloads of case files, manual research, and document-heavy workflows were the norm. In 2015, while working in the Freshfields Lab, Viktor encountered early LegalTech experiments. The question that stayed with him: How could legal work become more intelligent, accessible, and transparent?
The breakthrough came with generative AI. Viktor recognized both its power and its challenges: “Teaching AI to think like a lawyer and integrating it seamlessly into everyday workflows—always with the human at the center—is one of the most exciting challenges of our time,” he recalls.
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Building the Legal AI Workspace
In November 2023, Viktor teamed up with Dr. Tranberg, a physicist and software engineer, to launch Libra. Their vision: an end-to-end AI workspace for lawyers that automates routine work without disrupting established workflows.
Libra enables legal professionals to:
- Conduct research and analysis directly in chat, drawing from leading legal databases.
- Automate document review, contract checks, and due diligence.
- Collaborate through team workflows for mandate and document handling.
- Integrate seamlessly into tools like Word, Outlook, and SharePoint.
At its core, Libra promises absolute security. The platform is ISO 27001-certified, hosts exclusively in the EU, and complies fully with GDPR, BRAO, and §203 StGB—critical for handling sensitive legal data.
Scaling Trust and Adoption
Winning the trust of lawyers—often cautious about new technology—was no easy feat. Libra’s success, Viktor explains, came down to three factors: personal credibility, uncompromising security, and community.
The Libra Academy offers hundreds of lawyers every week a safe space to test and learn about AI, demystifying the technology and building confidence. This grassroots approach has turned early skeptics into adopters and ambassadors.
The results speak for themselves: Libra crossed the €1 million ARR milestone in record time—and just two months later doubled it.
Shaping the Future of the Legal Profession
For Viktor, Libra is not just about boosting productivity. It’s about fostering seamless collaboration within a dedicated AI Workspace — creating space for lawyers to focus on higher-level work. Beyond that, it’s about actively shaping the evolving culture of legal work in a transforming market.
He sees three trends defining the years ahead:
- AI-first legal advice – clients will receive an initial AI-generated response in selected legal areas such as passenger rights, unpaid invoices, tenancy, or consumer law.
- Hybrid models – AI will handle first-level analysis while lawyers provide strategy, negotiations, and judgment.
- Native AI law firms – where clients primarily interact with AI, backed discreetly by human lawyers.
“The legal profession is changing fundamentally,” Viktor says. “But it won’t disappear. Human judgment, strategy, and trust will become even more valuable.”
A LegalTech Pioneer at Europe’s Forefront
Libra’s story is more than just a startup success—it reflects a paradigm shift in the legal industry. With strong partnerships, rapid adoption, and growing international interest, Viktor von Essen and his team are proving that the future of law is already here.
As Viktor puts it: “It’s a privilege to stand in the middle of this transformation with such a strong team, learning, growing, and shaping the future of justice together.”
