Lebanese innovation drives a legal tech transformation

Lebanon’s growing technology sector has produced a rare standout: a legal-tech start-up positioning itself not only as a regional player, but as a potential disruptor in one of the world’s most tradition-bound professional industries. Lebanon-based legal technology company HAQQ Legal AI’s recent $3 million fundraising round, one of the largest legal-tech investments in the Middle East this year, marks a significant milestone for the country’s technology landscape. The round was notably led in part by Lebanese firm Razor Capital, whose participation underscores the emergence of domestic capital in backing innovation-oriented, high-growth ventures.

Founded in 2022 by Lebanese entrepreneurs Antoine Kanaan and Maître Abbas Kabalan, HAQQ Legal AI has developed a vertically integrated legal operating system that combines drafting, research, review, and case management within a single platform. Its proprietary engine, Justinian®, produces jurisdiction-specific legal outputs from a single prompt, distinguishing the platform from general-purpose AI tools that lack legal specialization. The platform now serves more than 7,500 law firms and institutions worldwide, including clients in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, as well as across Europe and South America.

A platform built for disruption

According to Razor Capital Managing Partner Ramzi Farah, the firm’s bet on HAQQ was driven by the conviction that the legal field, still reliant on manual drafting and paper-based workflows, was overdue for disruption. “This industry almost got the shock of its life when ChatGPT and OpenAI entered the market,” Farah noted in an interview with The Beiruter. For Farah, the arrival of advanced large language models (LLMs) revealed just how exposed lawyers were to technological change. HAQQ, he said, emerged at precisely the right moment, with a mission-driven thesis: to support individuals seeking justice and ultimately modernize the broader legal infrastructure.

That modernization, however, is not simply about adopting AI; it is about building it on the right foundation. Farah emphasized that the strength of any effective legal-AI system lies in the depth and quality of the jurisdiction-specific data it can process.  “Country data, official data, bar association data — that is where the real strength lies, if you can capture it,” he said. Rather than producing generic templates, the platform builds what he describes as “digital twins,” generating documents that reflect each lawyer’s distinct drafting style and tone while remaining grounded in the relevant legal framework

A regulator inflection point in Oman

HAQQ’s recent memorandum of understanding with the Oman National Engineering and Investment Company (ONEIC) represents a second major turning point, one that places regulatory compliance and localized adaptation at the center of its expansion model. Under Omani law, foreign legal firms and consultants must operate through regulated structures to work with domestic firms or clients. These contacts can make entry more complicated for foreign legal-tech platforms

HAQQ, however, succeeded in doing exactly that. The agreement with ONEIC provides not just a distribution mechanism but a pathway fully compliant with Omani legal conditions. For a technology company, especially one dealing with sensitive and high-stakes legal data, this accomplishment is noteworthy: it signals both regulatory credibility and an ability to adapt AI infrastructure to diverse jurisdictional requirements.

Speaking with The Beiruter, HAQQ’s Head of Growth Stephane Boghossian stressed that this compliance is not incidental but central to a model built around partnering with institutions that sit at the heart of their national legal systems.

The impact of that partnership has been immediate. Boghossian noted that the company onboarded 1,500 additional Omani law firms, giving it a substantial foothold in the country’s legal-technology market. He added that the company plans to replicate this model in other jurisdictions and is currently in negotiations for new partnerships across the MENA region, as well as in Italy and Spain, markets he described as legally sophisticated but slower to adopt legal technologies.

These are mature legal markets, but still behind when it comes to tech,” he said. “That makes them ideal for a platform like HAQQ.

Boghossian added that markets with strict data-sovereignty rules present particular opportunities. In such environments, partnerships with regulators and major public institutions are often prerequisites for adoption. The new funding, Boghossian said, will allow HAQQ to scale its enterprise infrastructure and strengthen accuracy, governance controls, and data-security features to meet those standards.

Lebanese capital, Lebanese talent, and global ambition

The raise also reflects growing confidence in Lebanon’s emerging technology ecosystem. For Farah, the country’s key advantage is not regulation or market depth, but its people. “The strength of the Lebanese ecosystem is the Lebanese entrepreneur himself or herself it’s the people, it’s the human capital,” he said. Investing in companies like HAQQ means betting on young entrepreneurs who can use Lebanon as a testing ground before expanding regionally and internationally. The broader challenge, Farah added, is how to enable “outward mobility” while keeping roots intact, allowing companies to scale globally without losing their Lebanese base.

The next two to three years, he believes, will be defined by consolidation across the Arab world. HAQQ is already engaging with firms and bar associations in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, and preparing for a broader international push. Asked whether HAQQ could become one of the region’s next tech powerhouses, Farah pointed to the alignment of market timing, technological depth, and regional demand. The legal sector is not simply ready for disruption, he said, “It’s hungry for it.”

With additional partnerships under negotiation and expansion underway across multiple continents, HAQQ’s next phase will test whether a Lebanon-built platform can emerge as a leader in a legal sector now ready for transformation.