British A-list actor Jude Law has played John Watson, Albus Dumbledore and Vladimir Putin. This week, he took on his most challenging role yet: making AI legal software feel fun (and even attractive).
In a new ad released Monday by Swedish legaltech startup Legora, Law roams a lavish house, coolly pitching its product. “Collaborate seamlessly,” he purrs to the camera. “Draft precisely.”
It’s a major coup for a three-year-old company. So how did Legora pull it off?
Stuart Shingler, VP of marketing, says the idea began nearly a year ago over dinner with founder and CEO Max Junestrand. They brought in Swedish agency Noa Åkestam Holst, known for its work with furniture giant Ikea, with a simple brief: do something bold, charming and unlike typical B2B ads.
Creative director Joakim Khoury pitched 10 ideas. One compared Legora to the pill in the film Limitless, which turns Bradley Cooper into a mega-IQ superman. Another — featuring Jude Law — felt “stupid and fun” and unlikely to survive. But it was an idea no one could shake.
“At some point we realised, shit, we have to make it happen,” Khoury tells me.
Project Alfie
Inside Legora, the project was dubbed “Alfie” — after Law’s 2004 romcom — and kept tightly under wraps.
“Alfie is also my son’s name,” says Shingler. “So for anyone who saw the name repeatedly in my calendar they probably assumed he was getting into trouble at school.”
Signing Law took months because of his busy schedule. “Legora works at an insane pace but certain things just can't be rushed,” Shingler says.
Khoury’s team wrote the script without knowing if Law would bite. “One week it was no, the next week it was yes, and this went on for a while,” he says.
“We're an AI company he probably wouldn't have heard of, so there must be a default hesitation," says Shingler.
Finally, it was a yes.
“I can't tell you what one line was the tipping point for him. But he really liked the concept.
“He needed to know that this wasn't a crypto company, here this year and gone next year. We had to make him understand this is a very backed company and that he shouldn’t feel afraid to put his name to it.”
The ad
“The first meeting with Jude, he was reading the script from a car on the set of another film. He nailed the humour of it,” says Khoury.
The ad was shot over two days in LA in January. Direction came from Saturday Night Live veteran Rhys Thomas, with cinematography by Oscar-winner Hoyte van Hoytema (Oppenheimer). Legora’s marketing team kept the production secret, using its promo work for the Masters — the company sponsored a golf caddie — as a cover story to explain the US trip.
It’s hard to describe exactly what Law is doing in the ad, but he holds your attention. He breezes around and stops every few seconds to smoulder at the viewers and tick off Legora features. "It's fair to assume I know quite a bit about law," says Law. "After all, my name is Jude." Take five, that most recognisable of jazz numbers by Dave Brubeck, is playing.
Shingler says his favourite moment on set was when Law improvised an imaginary phone call.
“We were watching from the next room and we’re all thinking ‘please don’t do a weird Swedish accent’. But he came out with a sort of Alan-Bennett-Yorkshire accent instead. I enjoyed that,” says Shingler.
Celebs hawking European tech
Legora is the latest European tech company to link up with a celebrity. Graham Norton recently sat on a horse for fintech Revolut. An angry Gordon Ramsay was soothed by an AI voice in an ad for London's PolyAI.
Presumably they don’t come cheap. Shingler declined to divulge specifics, but says landing Law was “a very high investment of time and effort”.
The company is certainly flush, having raised a $550m Series D round at a $5.55bn valuation in March.
Early reviews of the ad have been positive, with one commenter on X saying: “Finally, legal tech is hot.”
