Why Women Legal Tech Leaders Should Supercharge Their Networks

AI Opportunity for Women in Law:  Why women legal tech leaders should supercharge their networks and how they can leverage them to win

The legal industry stands at its most profound inflection point in over a century. With AI projected to transform legal services, women legal tech founders and innovation executives around the globe are innovating and designing legal solutions for the AI era of law. As their ventures multiply at unprecedented rates and industry growth rockets, many continue to face challenges and barriers in attaining success.

The factors contributing to this are complex and layered. Legal tech sits at the intersection of law, tech, and finance, fields where women are underrepresented and lack power, resulting in an array of challenges and barriers.  Many of these, such as access to finance, have been well discussed. Another by-product of this context has received less attention: women’s underrepresentation in key spaces in each of these fields undermines the strength of the networks and social capital vital to the success of their ventures. 

For women legal tech leaders, networks and social capital are pivotal to changing the current trajectory and capturing historic opportunities.   

The Research is Unequivocal: Networks are Critical Drivers of Success

Academic and industry research is clear: while all businesses need strong networks, they are especially vital for founders.

  • Research shows that women-owned businesses who actively leverage networking see significant improvements in firm performance (Wambui & Muathe, 2021).
  • Women business leaders who network strengthen their business and gain competitive advantage (Liu, Timothy & Gao, 2010).

How do networks power business success?

Think of networks as being like electricity for your ventures and powering every critical system for your business.

  • Finance: Access to investor and other capital providers who understand legal
  • Customers: Warm introductions to general counsels and innovation partners
  • Talent: Engineers who grasp legal workflows and compliance requirements
  • Marketing: Amplification through thought leadership and peer endorsements

Game-Changing Benefits of Networking

  • Knowledge Transfer from Battle-Tested Leaders. For women founders pioneering new types of legal solutions and even building the field itself, networks among founders who have navigated similar challenges—raising capital in regulated industries, hiring engineers who understand legal requirements, managing long enterprise sales cycles can yield insights and compress your learning curve from years to months.Founders who may be new to responsibilities such as hiring and managing teams, raising capital, and sales can benefit immensely from the perspectives, experiences, and advice of executive leaders in the sector and beyond.
  • Market Intelligence That Shapes Strategy. Founders who interact with other legal innovation leaders, gain critical intelligence:
    • Which firms are actually ready to adopt AI vs. just talking about it
    • What competitors are building in stealth mode
    • Which regulatory changes will impact your roadmap
    • What pricing models work for risk-averse legal buyers
  • Partnership Opportunities That Accelerate Scale. Legal tech thrives on strategic partnerships—between startups and law firms, technology platforms and legal departments, innovation leaders and justice organizations. Networks create these collaboration pathways.
  • Support for the Founder and Leadership Journey. Even the most successful woman legal tech founders can experience isolation-first as pioneering founders and then as leaders of their organizations. As CEO or innovation executive, there are few people who understand the unique challenges of transforming law through technology. Network support from others isn’t nice-to-have—it’s essential for resilience.
  • Resource Access Beyond Traditional Channels. From technical advisors who’ve built legal AI to investors who understand the legal market, networks provide access to specialized resources unavailable through traditional channels.
  • Brand Amplification in a Relationship-Driven Industry. In legal, your personal brand as an innovation leader directly impacts your company’s credibility. Strategic networking positions entrepreneurs as thought leaders defining the future of law.

Social Capital: The Hidden Capital Start-Ups Need

What Is Social Capital and Why it is Essential for Legal Tech Leaders?

Social capital refers to the networks, norms, and trust that facilitate cooperation between individuals, groups, and institutions.

It’s the relationship with an innovation partner that enables your pilot program. The credibility that gets you past procurement gatekeepers. The trust with an investor who understands the unique market and metrics of legal tech. The network that alerts you to challenges before they impact your product roadmap.

Research reveals that social capital facilitates and impacts every business process (Liu, Timothy & Gao, 2010). For legal tech, where trust and relationships determine enterprise adoption, social capital isn’t optional; it is mission critical.

How Women Legal Tech Leaders Can Build Their Networks and Social Capital

The Science of Network Architecture for Legal Tech Success

Multiple studies converge on what actually drives outcomes: network structure, centrality plus frequency, diversity across functions and geographies, and deliberate use of dormant ties

  • Optimal Size. Small or large networks can be effective. Network structure is the most important determinant of success. The types of connections in a network and “the connections” of those connections matter more than sheer size of the network. For example, a contact with an investor who focuses on your sector is more important than numerous finance contacts who don’t support your sector.
  • Centrality and cadence. Close, frequently tapped ties perform best (Yang & Chawla, 2019). A recent Chief study echoes this: over 80% of top women leaders interact with their networks regularly.
  • Composition and diversity. Networks composed of individuals from different sectors are the most beneficial. (legal, product, security, finance) and geographies (regional, national, global).
  • “Dormant” ties are Gold. The research tells us that contacts we haven’t stayed in touch with over the years are surprisingly important resources. Studies show that there are unique qualities to these relationships, for example university friends may share a bond that endures despite the passage of time and years. When reactivated, they are often extremely valuable.  Reach out and reinvigorate your ties with former work colleagues, schoolmates, and communities you may no longer actively interact with.
  • Relations-Centered Networking Yields the Strongest Benefits. Research shows women and men approach networking differently: Women focus on building relationships and meaningful connections, while men often prioritize transactional approaches. Women leaders:  Leverage your advantage.

What is Holding Women Back (And How to Break Through)

Women legal tech leaders often encounter a myriad of structural barriers when building networks in legal, finance, and tech. The power systems in these sectors were not built for them.  These include:

  • Norms and timing of events that conflict with other responsibilities such as caregiving  
  • Lack of access to key networking spaces

These exclusionary norms can also undermine women’s confidence and make them hesitant to:

  • Join exclusive events or communities
  • Ask for introductions or resources
  • Follow up assertively after initial meetings
  • Claim space

Breakthrough strategy. Use the AI transition to create new power structures that close today’s networking gaps. In parallel, keep working the current system with an abundance mindset: every interaction is an opportunity to make the ask, offer the intro, follow up fast.

Start now:

  • Message one dormant connection with a specific ask + offer. 
  • Explore Lex 2X Exec™ the global leadership network for women building the future of law. 

Resources

Liu, J., Timothy, D., & Gao, J. (2010). Buildincompetitive advantage through women’s networking. Business Strategy Series, 11(5), 295-307.

Wambui, L. W., & Muathe, S. M. (2021). The effect of networking on women-owned enterprises performance in Kenya. International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science, 10(2), 77-88.

Yang, L., & Chawla, N. V. (2019). Network structure and women’s success in STEM careers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Additional Resources

Harvard Business Review. The Secrets of Successful Female Networkers (hbr.org)

Networking for Women – Chief Network of Executive Women | Chief

The funding gap | UBS Global

A Beginner’s Guide to Networking (hbr.org)

Levin, Daniel & Walter, Jorge & Murnighan, J. (2011). Dormant Ties: The Value of Reconnecting. Organization Science. 22. 923-939. 10.2307/20868904. The social networks literature suggests that ties must be maintained to retain value. In contrast, we show that reconnecting dormant ties – former ties, now out of touch – can be extremely useful. Our research prompted Executive MBA students to consult their dormant contacts about an important work project; outcomes compared favorably to those of their current ties. In addition, reconnecting previously strong ties led to all of the four benefits that are usually associated with either weak ties (efficiency and novelty) or strong ties (trust and shared perspective). These findings suggest that dormant relationships – often overlooked or underutilized – can be a valuable source of knowledge and social capital.

Bogren, M., von Friedrichs, Y., Rennemo, Ø.and Widding, Ø. (2013), “Networking women entrepreneurs: fruitful for business growth?”, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 60-70, https://doi.org/10.1108/17566261311305210.

Klyver, K.and Grant, S. (2010), “Gender differences in entrepreneurial networking and participation”, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 213-227. https://doi.org/10.1108/17566261011079215.

Greguletz, Elena & Diehl, Marjo-Riitta & Kreutzer, Karin. (2018). Why women build less effective networks than men: The role of structural exclusion and personal hesitation. Human Relations. 72. 001872671880430. 10.1177/0018726718804303. Studies have shown that women’s professional networks are often less powerful and effective than men’s in terms of exchanged benefits, yet the motivations that underlie the networking behaviors remain less well understood. Based on an interview study of 37 high-profile female leaders working in large German corporations, we found that not only the extrinsic barrier of structural exclusion from powerful networks, but also the intrinsic barrier of women’s hesitations to instrumentalize social ties are key to answering our research question: Why do women build less effective networks than men? Our analysis points to the existence of structural exclusion resulting from work-family conflict and homophily. With regard to personal hesitation, we identified two elements that were associated with under-benefiting from networking: moral considerations in social interactions and gendered modesty. Our study makes two important contributions. First, by highlighting personal hesitation as an intrinsic barrier, it extends the understanding of women’s motivations for networking based on social exchange theory (SET). Second, based on structural barriers and personal hesitation, it develops a grounded theory model of networking that offers a holistic understanding of reasons that, from the perspective of the focal women, contribute to gender inequality in the workplace.