Lauri Läheb is among the most seasoned executives in Estonia and has been involved in almost every venture of interest in recent decades. For 15 years, he held various management roles within the telecom firm EMT, now part of Telia. From there, he moved on to senior positions at Tallink and then Omniva, the Tallinn-based post and logistics company, where he served as CTO. Läheb also sat on the supervisory boards of rate.ee, a precursor to Facebook that was once the largest social media platform in Estonia, as well as SK ID Solutions, a provider of electronic identity technologies. In short, Läheb’s seen a lot and knows his stuff.
Which is why his latest venture, Crespect, is perhaps indicative of not only where technology is heading, but e-Estonia as a whole. A tech spinoff from the international law firm Sorainen, Crespect has, since its establishment in 2022, sought to provide the market with AI-native, practice management cloud software that combines legal practice management and customer relationship management tools, as well as features that support enhanced billing and reporting. We spoke with Läheb to explore the company’s thinking and what it reveals about the future of AI-driven professional services.
What problems were you trying to solve when you built Crespect, and how does it reduce the everyday administrative and legal workload for small law firms?
Crespect is an AI-native, next-generation cloud software designed for medium-sized and larger law firms, rather than solo practitioners or tiny firms. We help to streamline law firm operations, but our core value and primary focus is to help firms identify and realise business growth opportunities. The software was developed within Sorainen, which has been repeatedly recognised by the Financial Times for innovation. The decision to spin Crespect out came after partnering law firms and former Sorainen colleagues began asking to use the same internally developed solution that Sorainen relied on to run its practice.
On a practical level, Crespect streamlines and automates a wide range of administrative and operational tasks across the entire firm – not only for lawyers, but also for other law firm employees. This includes new-client onboarding and compliance, time and case management, billing and invoicing, task delegation and workload management.
What differentiates Crespect is that efficiency alone is not the end goal. In addition to automation, we offer law-firm-specific CRM and business development insights. This helps lawyers strengthen client relationships, manage referrals and identify growth opportunities. By consolidating everything into one intelligent, AI-native platform, Crespect reduces administrative burdens while enabling lawyers to focus on what truly creates value: client and partner relationships, as well as legal expertise.
Many Estonian companies talk about zero bureaucracy. What parts of legal practice can now genuinely be automated or streamlined using Crespect?
Our ambition extends beyond zero bureaucracy. We are building the Crespect AI Companion, for example, a digital co-worker inside law firms – in some areas acting like the firm’s most experienced colleague, or even a partner.
Current users of Crespect can efficiently streamline many legal-practice workflows. Tasks such as preparing client service agreements with built-in compliance and comprehensive billing capabilities, managing approvals, issuing invoices, and handling debt collection are well-automated. This reduces manual effort, lowers the risk of errors, and makes responsibilities and workloads far more transparent.
I’d add that not all workflows are equally important. Some occur occasionally; others affect almost every client relationship. Based on our experience, three workflows have the most significant daily impact on firm revenue: service agreements, billing, and debt collection.
Your platform includes AI-driven drafting, KYC/AML compliance, invoicing and client management. Which feature do law firms usually adopt first, and why?
I would emphasise that Crespect covers legal practice management, including streamlining operations, automating invoicing, and more, and also includes a built-in, law-firm-specific CRM. Most law firms either do not use CRM software at all or struggle with implementing generic CRM systems.
With Crespect, both core workflows and law-firm-specific CRM and business-development workflows are preconfigured. All related data – including law firms’ operational data and the client’s 360-degree view – is seamlessly connected, and our AI capabilities provide insights to support informed business decisions.
As an all-in-one solution, we help lawyers utilise categorised segmentation, leads, referral management and CRM activities. Crespect’s integrated growth tools help firms turn insights into new revenue streams. Additionally, Crespect’s data-centric capabilities support internal collaboration, business growth and long-term strategic goals for law firms.
Estonia’s digital infrastructure facilitates secure data exchange. How does the Estonian environment help you develop or test new features faster than elsewhere?
From day one, Crespect has been built for international markets. Estonia itself has very few medium-sized or large law firms, so exporting was never optional for us. Today, Crespect is already used by users from nine countries.
Estonia’s main advantages lie in its engineering talent, digital maturity, and startup ecosystem. Among our engineers, investors, and advisers are people who have helped build Estonia’s digital infrastructure and services, as well as those with experience from Estonian startups and scaling global businesses to unicorn status.
Even though Crespect was founded before the GPT era, we declared early on that our goal was to build the most intelligent and user-friendly software to help law firms grow globally. When large language models became available, we were already well-positioned to be an AI-native organisation and product.
This combination – experienced engineers, a digitally mature ecosystem and strong startup know-how – allows us to experiment quickly and move from idea to production in very short development cycles.
What does the future of legal practice look like when tools like Crespect become the norm? Will lawyers spend more time advising and less time on forms?
Yes – but with important nuances. Our vision with the Crespect AI Companion is not to replace lawyers, but to augment them. At least until accurate artificial general intelligence becomes available, human judgment remains essential. The first significant impact of AI is the removal of mundane, repetitive administrative work that distracts lawyers from where their real value lies: advising clients and building trusted relationships.
When tools like Crespect AI become standard, legal advice will become more accessible. At the same time, we will see more automated systems handling low-value or highly standardised interactions – for example, simple contract negotiations where both sides may use computerised systems to negotiate terms with no human involvement at all. In the foreseeable future, humans in law firms will undoubtedly remain in the so-called automation loop, validating and refining AI-generated outputs, especially in complex or high-risk, high-value tasks. Interestingly, as AI takes over simpler tasks initially, the intensity of more comprehensive work may actually increase, as firms can handle more sophisticated matters in parallel.
One more thing I would like to add is that at Crespect, our mission also includes a strong focus on lawyer well-being. By utilising our data insights to balance workloads and alleviate unnecessary pressure, our goal is not only to enhance efficiency and revenue but also to help lawyers achieve professional happiness and adopt more sustainable practices.
© e-Estonia / Justin Petrone, 2025.
This article was originally published on e-Estonia under the title
“Crespect CEO and co-founder Lauri Läheb on using AI to streamline international law firm management”.
Original article
