The Top 4 LegalTech Startups in YC W26
YC's W26 batch has a notable cluster of legal startups, and not the kind that sell software to lawyers. These four companies are all operating as AI-native law firms themselves, each targeting a different corner of the legal market.
Arcline
AI-native legal services for startups, same-day turnaround
Arcline provides AI-native legal services for startups with same-day turnaround and lawyers in the loop. Their AI does 80% of the work, so startups pay lawyers only for the final 20%.
The company charges flat fees per document rather than billing by the hour.
Founder Pamir Ehsas, who was previously outside counsel to OpenAI, saw the same problems on repeat: simple legal work took weeks, pricing was opaque, and lawyers started from scratch instead of using AI.
His cofounder Stefan Mandaric (CTO) has 8+ years of ML/data science experience, including roles at Omny and a Fulbright scholarship at MIT.
They've scaled to helping several YC companies and 50+ venture-backed startups across the US and Nordics.
General Legal
AI-native contract review law firm, flat-fee
General Legal is an AI-native law firm focused on commercial contracting for founders. They save founders hundreds to thousands per contract and turn around contracts in hours instead of days.
The company was founded by Ryan, Javed, and JP. Ryan and Javed previously built AI products for lawyers at Casetext, where Ryan was CTO and Javed led AI. Javed and JP went to Harvard Law and practiced at Fenwick and Cooley.
Since announcing their private preview, over 20 growth-stage companies have moved commercial contracting to their firm.
General Legal (generallegal.com)
LegalOS
AI immigration law firm (O-1, H-1B, etc.), 100% approval rate
LegalOS is an AI-native immigration law firm that combines AI with 40+ years of legal expertise. They've studied 12,000 successful petitions to design their process, which allows them to deliver visa applications in as quickly as 48 hours. Their AI agents draft petition narratives, compile evidence, and anticipate USCIS objections. Every case is reviewed by licensed immigration attorneys, and they support O-1, H-1B, L-1A, L-1B, TN, EB-1A, EB-1C, and EB-2 NIW petitions.
They've filed dozens of visa applications and have a 100% approval rate so far.
CEO Matthew Asir previously founded the immigration SaaS Legal Bullet (Forbes 30 Under 30) and studied Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. He and his sister Rachel (COO) grew up working in their family's U.S. immigration law firm.
CTO Claire Jutabha leads engineering and AI. She has an MS and BS in Computer Science from USC and previously shipped LLM safety pipelines at TikTok and worked at NASA JPL on the Mars Exploration team.
Wayco
Voice AI for medlegal case intake & care coordination
Wayco is using voice AI to automate case intake, claim and medical care coordination, and telemedicine. What traditionally takes human managers days of phone calls and paperwork, Wayco handles in minutes.
Wayco is also becoming a law firm itself, with the goal of ensuring anyone in America gets access to justice when they need it, starting with personal injury.
Founder Iqbol Temirkhojaev had his first VC-backed startup at age 13, his first exit (to the United Nations) at 14, received a software patent at 15, and a medal of honor from the President of Tajikistan at 16. He's also a 3x Olympiad gold medalist in competitive coding.