Legal Geek Europe 2026
Legal Geek Europe was the conference equivalent to the modern mullet – the revival of the 80s haircut famously described in the 2001 movie Joe Dirt as business in the front party at the back! It was cool and fun, and it also covered serious topics. Although I have been attending Legal Geek conferences for ten years, this was my first time at Legal Geek Europe. And this was something I had in common with the majority of attendees crowded into de Hallen Studios in Amsterdam. A show of hands during Jimmy Vestbirk’s welcome speech revealed that over half the audience were attending their first ever Legal Geek! Legal Geek Europe is attracting more people each year, and next year it is moving to a bigger venue.
What was interesting about the European edition is that the outdoor spaces and party vibe on a stunning sunny day in Amsterdam were the setting for serious discussions around the wider implications of AI adoption and implementation, balancing the celebratory AI evangelism that has become a hallmark of legal tech events. Legal has moved on from encouraging lawyers to ‘embrace’ AI to examining issues around regulation and ethics, the fallout from the pace of change in GenAI, including around diversity and equality, and establishing exactly where AI fits into the legal tech stack and legal services delivery.
Business in the front…
The opening session on AI regulation was a case in point – a serious topic immediately after the high fives. And it wasn’t a lecture from a legislator or regulator. Nienke Kingma a tech and IP lawyer at Pinsent Masons in Amsterdam explained the current rules around AI and what firms and legal departments should be doing right now to prepare for the implications of the EU AI Act. Don’t let your data be tomorrow’s headlines, she warned. This was followed by Marisa Borsboom, an ambassador for ELTA, the European Legal Technology Association speaking about AI and ethics. Legal is the cheerleader for AI, but we also need to be apprehensive, she said. Who is AI replacing and how important are they? For example, while you might appreciate that AI improves airline safety, you wouldn’t replace the pilot. We need to consider what AI means for smaller firms, and what it means for justice, which needs to be empowered not automated. “We don’t know the importance of justice until justice fails,” she said.
The format of Legal Geek Europe was slightly different from the main conference, as the breakout sessions were roundtables with limited attendance and once they were full no more people were admitted. The downside was that the breakout rooms were situated in different parts of the venue, so you had to know which room the session was in and find it quickly or you risked missing out; the upside was that people who were genuinely interested in a topic could participate in an in-depth conversation, share experiences and challenges and learn from each other. I joined workshops on European data sovereignty and gender bias.
The GenAI gender divide
Nicky Leijtens at Bird & Bird led a workshop on the danger of AI exacerbating the gender gap. This group discussion was conducted around some concerning statistical research. A well-known issue for large language models – and search engines generally – is that by reading across historical datasets and repurposing outdated sources, AI is perpetuating and reinforcing prejudice and discrimination, including gender bias. And powerful GenAI companies raise further challenges around inclusion. Because the big GenAI companies, both generalist and in legal, are founded and led predominantly by men (although there are female senior executives and investors, these are generally not the people shaping the direction of the companies), gender bias is not being addressed even as GenAI is taking over processes and decision-making functions across core sectors and services.
The GenAI amplified gender divide was reflected on the ground at Legal Geek Europe, notwithstanding that there was an even gender balance among speakers and attendees, which is quite unusual for a tech conference. So this is not down to event organisers. The community appears to have divided itself along gender lines.
Only one man participated in the gender bias workshop. When I asked around, the general view was that this was perceived as a session for women, and men were not sure that they were welcome. However, there were plenty of men at the Women in Tech drinks reception later in the day, so maybe the workshop should have been directly before the drinks!
The final panel was on law firm economics: how legal services are being forced change their pricing model as GenAI has condensed time-based value. Law firms are having to deal with the realisation that some 40% of billable work is threatened by AI and identify the high-value work that rests on judgment, which requires both analysis and judgment to make the best representation. As Hans Albers of Deloitte Legal Management Consulting put it, AI isn’t the finished product. This was followed by networking drinks in the sunshine. It was great to catch up with friends and connections from all over Europe.
Stepping up to legal
Anthropic’s recent announcements indicate that targeting legal services is a key element of its pivot to enterprise solutions. Its Claude for Legal webinar on 21 April had 20,000 attendees, and a multi-year deal with Freshfields announced on 23 April includes a firmwide Claude rollout, early access to future Anthropic models and a co-development partnership to create legal AI tools and agentic workflows. Freshfields also partners with Google and is an early adopter of Thomson Reuters’ next generation CoCounsel Legal which launched in beta on 20 April. Word is the latest battleground where tech giants are competing directly with legal AI vendors. Claude for Word was released in public beta on 10 April and on 30 April, Microsoft introduced Legal Agent for Word, a Copilot alternative specifically designed for legal teams. While there is potential for a shift from buy to build if other law firms follow Freshfields and partner directly with foundational models, the legal AI unicorns are cementing a strong market position in legal. On 30 April Legora announced a $50m extension of its Series D financing, with investors including Nvidia’s NVentures and Atlassian, and its latest advertising campaign featuring Jude Law can be seen all over London
Legal Geek is hosting three conferences this year, learn more on our events page.
Written by Joanna Goodman, tech journalist
Photo credit (Joanna): Sam Mardon
