{"id":108177,"date":"2026-03-02T06:10:58","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T09:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/896806378"},"modified":"2026-03-02T06:10:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T09:10:58","slug":"vibe-coding-lawyers-and-the-new-economics-of-legal-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/03\/02\/vibe-coding-lawyers-and-the-new-economics-of-legal-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Vibe Coding Lawyers and the New Economics of Legal Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n<\/figure>\n

By Shawn Curran, CEO, Jylo.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Vibe coding lawyers\u2019 have become the latest talking point in legal tech. And almost on cue, we\u2019re seeing the usual defensive reaction: it won\u2019t be safe<\/em>, it won\u2019t be secure<\/em>, it won\u2019t be enterprise-grade<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Some of those concerns are valid. Someone will eventually install a package with a vulnerability, call an unsafe endpoint, or ship something half-baked. But here\u2019s the uncomfortable truth: that already happens when humans code professionally. It always has.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s shortsighted is dismissing the idea that someone deeply versed in a process can roll up their sleeves and create the software they need. This shift in who builds software is quietly but fundamentally changing the landscape.<\/p>\n

The Squeeze: Heavily Funded SaaS vs. Internal Build<\/strong><\/p>\n

At Jylo<\/a>, we are sandwiched between two forces.<\/p>\n

On one side, there are legal tech companies that have raised billions to build SaaS products targeting addressable markets that, in many cases, are in the low hundreds of millions.<\/p>\n

On the other side, there\u2019s a growing cohort of \u2018vibe lawyers\u2019 within law firms \u2013 senior, actively practicing lawyers who are increasingly comfortable encouraging their firms to move away from external tools and instead build more targeted systems that fit their actual internal workflows.<\/p>\n

That second force seems only to be getting stronger \u2013 and if that continues, it further restricts the addressable market for Legal Tech and SaaS more broadly.<\/p>\n

And we\u2019re already seeing the impact this is having on software stocks.<\/p>\n

The uncomfortable math sitting underneath all of this is that private markets are pricing \u2018new SaaS\u2019 \u2018AI native\u2019 at 60x revenue multiples. Yet today, following the SaaSacre, public markets are valuing \u2018old SaaS\u2019 \u2018growth at scale\u2019 companies at 3x revenue.<\/p>\n

Both can\u2019t be right.<\/p>\n

Today the market is drawing a sharp distinction between \u2018old SaaS\u2019 and \u2018AI-native SaaS,\u2019 often assigning very different multiples. In reality, many of these companies share similar economic foundations.<\/p>\n

Jylo<\/a> sits between those worlds. We are AI-native in how we\u2019re built, but we\u2019re also realistic about how much of the current wave still resembles traditional SaaS. That said, markets often price narratives before fundamentals fully converge. While it\u2019s reasonable for us to think of ourselves in the new SaaS category today \u2013 we\u2019re staying disciplined about building a business that remains viable as those multiples start to normalise tomorrow.<\/p>\n

History offers a useful parallel \u2013 public markets began repricing newspaper stocks years before the industry\u2019s collapse became obvious to everyone else.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

The light blue is earnings; the dark blue is the sell-off.<\/p>\n

Private markets operate on a different timeline. There\u2019s every incentive to maintain the illusion of peak valuations. But the truth is, even retail investors are rethinking SaaS. They\u2019ve seen the compression, absorbed the losses, and repriced their expectations accordingly.<\/p>\n

When public markets have already recalibrated and when lawyers inside firms are building their own tools \u2013 private legal tech valuations built on yesterday\u2019s multiples seem to be living on borrowed time.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t end well.<\/p>\n

The shift from 60x to 3x will eventually show up somewhere. When celebrities start promoting technology sold to traditionally conservative lawyers, it suggests the peak isn\u2019t far away.<\/p>\n

The age of throwing money at growth, no matter the cost, seems to be coming to an end. With sustainable business models that can survive and thrive through uncertainty seem more important than ever. Momentum tends to work better in the short term, while value tends to work better in the long term.<\/p>\n

Who Is Actually Qualified to Build Legal Tech?<\/strong><\/p>\n

On vibe coding, it\u2019s worth asking an uncomfortable question: who says today\u2019s legal tech founders are more qualified to build legal software than senior lawyers inside top firms?<\/p>\n

If you look at recent Y Combinator batches and the broader ecosystem, many legal tech founders:<\/p>\n