Ep 293: Litera’s Avaneesh Marwaha: The CEO Who Left Before AI and Returned to Lead Through It

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Jun 4, 2025

Avaneesh Marwaha, CEO of Litera, returned to lead the company through AI's transformative era after initially stepping down. He discusses the ‘perfect storm’ driving changes in the legal tech industry, such as AI adoption and evolving client expectations. Marwaha reveals how AI has revolutionized internal operations, allowing rapid development and enhancing productivity. He also touches on the shift to cloud-based solutions and the challenges law firms face in technology adoption, highlighting Litera's strategic innovations and acquisitions that position it as a key player in legal workflows.

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INSIGHT

CEO Returns for AI Era

Avaneesh Marwaha returned as CEO to lead Litera through a perfect storm of AI adoption, legal tech investment, and evolving client needs.
His deep industry insight positioned him to guide Litera’s next decade of innovation and success.

INSIGHT

AI Transforms Software Development

Generative AI transformed Litera’s internal operations, drastically increasing software development speed.
They completed multiple quarters' worth of work in weeks, redefining innovation capacity without adding staff.

ADVICE

Mandate Daily AI Use

Marwaha requires 100% daily AI use by all Litera employees, including himself, to maximize productivity.
He personally reviews 10 to 20 meeting transcripts nightly using Microsoft Copilot for rapid decision-making.

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What happens when a CEO steps away from a legal tech company just before the generative AI revolution explodes, then returns two years later amid a landscape that is being dramatically transformed? For Litera’s Avaneesh Marwaha, that is exactly what happened.

As the CEO of Litera from 2016 to 2022, Marwaha led the legal tech company through a remarkable period of expansion and diversification, including growing its global customer base by over 1,500% and its annual revenues by 1200%, and overseeing some 14 acquisitions that transformed the company’s focus from document productivity to a broad range of legal workflows, ranging from transaction management and due diligence to litigation, firm intelligence, and more.

Marwaha stepped down as CEO in 2022 to become Litera’s chairman, just before the tidal wave of gen AI swept over legal technology, and then, in a surprising move last October, he returned to the CEO role. On today’s LawNext, Marwaha shares how he was drawn to return as the company’s leader by the “perfect storm” of forces reshaping the legal industry of AI adoption, unprecedented legal tech investment, and evolving client expectations.

In today’s conversation, Marwaha reveals how AI has fundamentally rewired Litera's internal operations – enabling his 1,000-person company to complete quarters' worth of development work in mere weeks and transforming everything from code generation to meeting management. He also shares his personal AI workflow, including how he uses Microsoft Copilot to review up to 20 meeting transcripts nightly, and explains why he requires every Litera employee to be using AI every day – and why he believes this mandate is reshaping the company's competitive edge.

In addition, Marwaha unpacks Litera's strategic shift from acquiring dozens of companies during his first tenure to now favoring internal development – a change driven largely by AI's ability to rapidly accelerate innovation cycle, and he discusses Litera's evolution into what he calls "the experience company" for law firms, and how this transformation reflects broader shifts in legal technology, where success increasingly depends on workflow integration rather than standalone solutions.

Marwaha was formerly on this podcast in 2020: LawNext Episode 68: Litera CEO Avaneesh Marwaha on Growth During A Crisis.

Thank You To Our Sponsors

This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out.

Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks.
Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner).
SpeakWrite: Save time with fast, human-powered legal transcription—so you can focus on your practice

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