PocketLawyers Secures Investment to Expand Across Africa

Ngozi Nwabueze, the founder of PocketLawyers, has transformed her virtual law firm into a pioneering legal-tech startup. Initially launched in 2020 as a practical solution to afford office rent post-COVID, PocketLawyers has evolved into a comprehensive platform that provides solo practitioners and small firms with essential tools to manage their practices efficiently. The platform offers features such as no-code website creation, AI-generated legal documents, and seamless client interaction management, from consultations to invoicing.

PocketLawyers has recently secured a strategic investment from Nubia Capital, which will enable the startup to expand across Africa and into emerging markets. This investment underscores a shift in how investors view legal tech in Africa, with Nubia Capital making a strategic bet on infrastructure-level plays. The funding will be used to secure intellectual property globally, form strategic partnerships with legal associations, and scale the product team.

Nwabueze describes PocketLawyers as “Shopify for lawyers,” aiming to redefine access to justice in markets historically underserved by traditional legal institutions. The platform currently supports over 250 lawyers across Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, allowing them to create profile pages detailing their services, pricing, location, and client reviews. This transparency enables potential clients to find, vet, and hire lawyers based on clear criteria.

The PocketAI feature is a standout, assisting lawyers with legal research and document generation, thereby reducing turnaround time and improving service delivery. Nwabueze emphasizes that PocketLawyers is not just a marketplace or a practice management tool; it is the infrastructure that offers end-to-end legal enablement for both lawyers and clients.

PocketLawyers’ journey has not been without challenges. Initially launched as a service-based platform in 2023, it faced scalability issues and user feedback that led to a complete overhaul. The platform was shut down and rebuilt to be scalable, product-led, and user-autonomous. This pivot has proven to be a differentiator, with PocketLawyers winning first place at the Justice Tech Hackathon and being accepted into five accelerator programs. The startup is also onboarding 1,000 newly minted lawyers as part of a grassroots growth strategy.

Legal-tech has traditionally lagged behind sectors like fintech and health-tech in terms of investment. However, this is changing, with PocketLawyers being part of a new wave of startups positioning law as a crucial enabler of business, trade, and innovation. The platform’s blend of marketplace functionality and operational tools makes it one of the few offering a truly integrated experience, focusing on practice management, compliance, and growth.

With Nubia Capital’s backing, PocketLawyers plans to expand into at least 10 countries by the end of 2025, starting with Anglophone Africa before moving into Francophone regions with a multilingual rollout. The long-term vision is to transform how the Global South engages with law and justice, making it easy for anyone, anywhere, to find legal help, form a company, secure IP, or draft contracts across borders and at scale.

PocketLawyers is not just chasing the legal tech trend; it is setting the pace. With market momentum, a solid team, and a product built on real legal experience, the startup is poised to become a unicorn and the go-to legal infrastructure platform for Africa and other emerging markets.