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Justice Connect is adopting Legora across its pro bono legal teams in a new partnership that is designed to explore how AI can expand access to legal support.
Legora, the agentic operating system for lawyers, is providing the platform, licences, and deployment support at zero cost, with BigLaw firm Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer assisting the responsible implementation through its pro bono partnership with Justice Connect.
The move coincides with Legora’s growing reach in the legal landscape, with key developments – such as adoption by firms across Australia, incorporation into Singapore Management University’s legal curriculum, and the rollout of AI-driven research tools – underscoring its expanding impact on legal education, research, and practice.
The initiative with Justice Connect will focus on the connections and homeless law programs, with Legora’s legal engineers working with teams to identify practical applications across research, document review, drafting and file management.
The initiative highlights the potential for responsible AI adoption to strengthen community legal services.
Access to Justice
Justice Connect’s adoption of Legora brings AI technology into Australia’s legal sector, with a partnership focused on improving how pro bono legal teams assist people who are unable to afford traditional legal services.
The partnership is not Justice Connect’s first move to expand access to justice, with its planned merger with JusticeNet aiming to further strengthen its pro bono network and reach across Australia.
Justice Connect, which is an accredited community legal centre that connects people who cannot afford a lawyer with the lawyers who can help them, delivered 7,413 one-to-one legal services and leveraged 59,741 hours of pro bono time, an estimated value of $25.7 million, across its programs in FY25.
For Justice Connect’s CEO Chris Povey, the value of the technology is fundamentally determined by whether it can reduce the time lawyers spend on administrative tasks and increase the time they can spend on assisting people who require legal support.
“Every hour our lawyers spend on research or document review is an hour they are not spending with someone who has only a couple of days to respond to a court notice,” Povey said.
“We are not interested in technology for its own sake; we are interested in whether we can help the next person who calls us, and the one after that. That is the test we will hold this to.”
Building on this commitment to innovation, the collaboration with Legora examines how technological tools can enable pro bono practitioners to devote greater attention to vulnerable clients seeking legal aid.
Responsible AI adoption
The collaboration also highlights the broader challenges facing community legal organisations seeking to adopt emerging technologies, with Susannah Wilkinson, who is the director of AI acceleration at HSF Kramer, emphasising the necessity for accessible and responsible implementation.
“There is a significant opportunity for community legal centres and not-for-profit organisations to harness the benefits of AI, but they face real barriers to accessing and implementing the latest technology,” Wilkinson said.
“We’re proud to be supporting Justice Connect to leverage Legora’s platform to amplify the incredible work that they do, helping to ensure that the benefits of legal AI can be applied responsibly where they can make a meaningful difference to access to justice.
“This pilot has the potential to create a scalable, replicable model across the community legal sector, and we hope this is the first of many such collaborations.”
Similarly, Heather Paterson, vice president of Legora APJ, highlighted the partnership as a chance to ensure that advanced legal AI is more accessible to the community legal sector, whilst recognising that Justice Connect has an important role in shaping how the technology is utilised from the outset.
“We believe there is a great opportunity to use AI to improve access to justice and extend on the incredible work of community lawyers across Australia,” Paterson said.
“Giving Justice Connect the same platform the largest firms in this market run on, at no cost, is the most direct thing we can do about that.
“Working alongside HSF Kramer, who bring their own experience of adopting AI, means Justice Connect’s team can shape how the technology is used from day one.”
Justice Connect adds to the increasing number of Australian legal organisations that work with Legora, alongside HSF Kramer and other BigLaw and SME firms across the country.
The tool is used by more than 100,000 legal professionals at over 1,800 law firms and in-house teams across over 50 markets.
