The Lawyered Up founder on closing Africa’s legal-access gap, building technology from South Africa, and why justice remains at the heart of her work.
Serisha Barrat, founder and CEO of Lawyered Up, recently spoke with Africa Talks Business. The Cape Town-based legal-tech entrepreneur, recognised by Forbes Africa and named one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans, has spent the past six years building technology that makes legal work simpler and more accessible for African businesses. She spoke to us about the gap she set out to close, the realities of building legal tech from South Africa, and why access to justice remains at the heart of her work.
In this interview, Barrat discusses what inspired her to establish Lawyered Up, how technology can help businesses protect and grow, and what it takes to build a legal technology company from South Africa. She also explains the role of Attora, her artificial intelligence-powered platform for connecting people with verified lawyers, and shares why access to justice, especially for survivors of gender-based violence, remains central to her work.
What inspired you to found Lawyered Up, and what gap in Africa’s legal-services market were you determined to address?
I have been an entrepreneur since I was 19, and I didn’t get the right legal support early on, which affected my business later in the journey. When you are young, building something small and short on resources, legal feels like something that can wait. Later, working across banking, financial services and legal operations, I saw how legal and compliance processes work inside large organisations. I also studied towards a second degree in law, but I chose not to finish it and went fully into entrepreneurship instead.
That gave me both perspectives, and it showed me how fragmented the legal side of business still was. Contracts lived in email, documents sat in different folders, approvals were hard to track, and many small businesses only called a lawyer once something had already gone wrong. The gap is enormous. The World Justice Project estimates that 5.1 billion people worldwide have at least one unmet justice need. For businesses, World Commerce & Contracting puts average contract value erosion at 8.6%, and above 20% for the weakest performers. On thin margins, that is the difference between growing and surviving. Lawyered Up was built to close that gap.
Today Lawyered Up is becoming the legal operating system for businesses, bringing drafting, AI-assisted review, approvals, e-signatures, obligations and renewals into one connected workspace.
I also realised that legal demand is scattered, and search alone is not enough. Lawyers are searchable, but legal expertise still isn’t routable. That is why I founded Attora, which uses AI to understand the legal need, structure the matter and route it to the right verified lawyer. AI understands. The network connects. Humans solve.
How can affordable, technology-driven legal services help African startups and SMEs protect and grow their businesses?
For an SME, a legal mistake is disproportionately expensive. A poorly structured supplier agreement, an unsigned contract or a missed renewal quickly becomes a commercial problem. And these businesses matter: according to TIPS, formal small businesses in South Africa contributed around 19% of GDP and a third of all jobs in 2023. Technology moves legal work from reactive to routine. Instead of contracts scattered across inboxes, a business can create, review, approve, sign and track them in one structured process, with templates for repeat work and clear visibility of who is responsible for what. That foundation matters even more once a company starts dealing with larger customers, investors, procurement teams and new jurisdictions.
What have been the biggest challenges of building a legal-tech business in South Africa, and how have you overcome them?
We were building both a company and a category. Legal tech was barely part of the conversation when we started, yet the global contract management software market was already worth about USD 1.6 billion in 2024 and is projected to double by 2030. Building from South Africa taught us to be disciplined: capital is limited, enterprise sales are slow, and trust and distribution matter as much as product. The biggest lesson has been simple: stay close to the customer, find the real friction and be willing to rebuild.
As Lawyered Up grows, which African markets hold the greatest potential, and why?
Kenya, Nigeria, Botswana and Ghana stand out because of their growing business ecosystems, strong entrepreneurial activity and increasing demand for better contract and compliance infrastructure. According to the IFC, sub-Saharan Africa has more than 44 million formal small businesses and an estimated USD 331 billion SME finance gap. Rather than entering each market alone, Lawyered Up works with corporates, banks, telcos and associations that already serve SMEs across multiple countries, allowing us to scale through supplier programmes, SME initiatives and co-branded offerings. We are building from Africa around local realities, but the problem is global.
Beyond business, what impact are you most committed to creating?
Access to justice, especially for survivors of gender-based violence. Justice Up, the pro bono impact arm of Lawyered Up, is one of the reasons the company exists. I have experienced abuse myself, so I know how hard it is to find legal help when you need it most. The scale of the problem is staggering: in November 2025, gender-based violence and femicide were classified as a national disaster in South Africa, and KPMG has estimated their cost to the economy at between R28.4 billion and R42.4 billion a year. Through Attora, lawyers will be able to give pro bono hours directly to GBV survivors. Justice Up is the mission; Attora helps deliver it at scale.
About Serisha Barrat
Serisha Barrat is a legal technology founder and AI entrepreneur. She is the Founder & CEO of Lawyered Up, Founder & Executive Chair of Attora, and Co-founder of esolvia (USA). Her work sits at the intersection of legal technology, artificial intelligence, digital transformation and access to trusted professional services.
Website: https://www.lawyeredapp.com/
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Linktree: https://linktr.ee/lawyeredup
