How do you make the law attractive? – Hire Law, ofcourse

By Jeremy Hall, Family Law barrister at 42BR Barristers

The Swedes, it seems, are on a bit of a mission.  With their all-conquering 1970s kitsch pop-music and  pornography a fading memory, brainy people in advertising agencies have been turning their minds to selling legal services to the world.  

More particularly, how they can be made sexy.  

The bar, lets face it, is pretty low. Those of us who enjoy a sneaky afternoon watching  ‘Dickinson’s Real Deal’  will be familiar with the legal advert oeuvre.  ‘Have you been injured in an accident?  Was it someone else’s fault?’  intones a sweaty man, marching diagonally in front of demented-looking people wearing headsets ‘ready to answer your call’.   

Apart from the PI rip-off merchants who couldn’t give a hoot about their professional reputation, most legal businesses limit their advertising to discreet banner ads on tasteful websites, and let word of mouth do the rest.

But suddenly the AI boys are in town and their marketing budgets are BIG.   Legal AI software providers are genuine game-changers, holding out the promise of massive wage reductions to law firms and other legal service providers.  They need to get first-mover advantage by making a splash on LinkedIn and the ‘gram, and they don’t care how much they pay Sven to organise it.

Legora, founded in Stockholm in 2023, is a good example.  Its product comprises a ‘domain-specific AI platform for legal workflows’.  If that sounds boring, let me tell you that the business was worth $650m last May, and is worth $5bn now.

The ad agency Noa Akestam Holst got the brief to shake things up, and perhaps after a quick google search, someone realised that there is an A-lister who is called, err, Law, and wouldn’t it be hilarious to get him to front the Legora campaign? 

The result, it has to be said, is brilliant. The ads (there are two at the time of going to press) are stylish, nuanced, and extremely funny.  Directed by Saturday Night Live veteran Rhys Thomas, and shot by Oscar-winning cinematography Hoyte van Hoytema (Oppenheimer, no less), they ought to be bloody good, but its Law’s performance which makes these commercials fly.  

Shot in a lavish office somewhere in LA, Jude is pouty and all-knowing – camp, almost – but he’s still hot,  and when he tells us that he wants his legal research done ‘thoroughly’, one can almost hear the squeals.  

What the hell has just happened?  What are you doing to us, Jude?

But before we get carried away, lets remind ourselves that shoving a film star into unexpected territory is hardly original.  Think George Clooney and his coffee machines, Christopher Walken prancing about to Fatboy Slim, Daniel Craig and Belvedere Vodka.  And the greatest  example of a hot A-lister talking about something boring?  It has to be Margot Robbie in a bubble bath explaining the complexities of mortgage bonds to the audience  in The Big Short.  That scene puts even Jude’s performance in the shade.

Will it make people subscribe to Legora?  Who knows.  But we are talking about it, so hats off to them.  Who will be next to front an AI legal services ad?  Did I hear you say David Dickinson?