Avaneesh Marwaha

Chief Executive Officer Litera

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Avaneesh Marwaha is Chief Executive Officer of Litera, the Chicago legal technology company whose software sits inside 99% of the Am Law 100. He has held the job twice. He was CEO from 2016 to 2022, a period in which Litera grew from $16 million to roughly $250 million in revenue and assembled itself through acquisition into a platform spanning both the practice and the business of law; he then chaired the board from 2022 to 2024; and in October 2024 he returned as chief executive. A former lawyer with a biology degree, he came to the role from operations — COO of the expense management company Nexonia, and before that of Keno Kozie, which ran help desk and managed services for large law firms. That last job is the one that explains the rest: he has spent his career close to the people who actually keep law firms running.

Career Highlights

• Appointed Chief Executive Officer of Litera in October 2024, returning to a role he had previously held from 2016 to 2022.
• Served as Litera’s Chairman of the Board between the two CEO tenures, from 2022 to 2024.
• Grew Litera from $16 million to approximately $250 million in revenue during his first period as chief executive.
• Brought Litera Draft, formerly Litera Desktop, to market.
• Built out the Practice of Law segment through acquisitions including Kira and Transact, and the Business of Law segment through acquisitions including Foundation and Clocktimizer.
• Was Chief Operating Officer of Nexonia, now Emburse, where he was instrumental in its expansion into a multinational company.
• Was Chief Operating Officer of Keno Kozie, overseeing growth in help desk, engineering and managed services for some of the largest law firms in the world.
• Holds a JD from Valparaiso University School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Bradley University.

Professional Journey

Marwaha took a bachelor’s degree in biology at Bradley University and then a JD at Valparaiso University School of Law. Litera describes him as a former lawyer and entrepreneur, though the company does not say where or for how long he practised.

His operational career began outside legal software and then curved back into it. At Keno Kozie he was Chief Operating Officer, growing the firm’s help desk, engineering and managed services businesses serving some of the largest law firms in the world — which is to say he spent that period responsible for whether large legal organisations’ technology worked on any given morning. He then became Chief Operating Officer of Nexonia, the expense and time management company now known as Emburse, where he was instrumental in its expansion into a multinational business while sharpening its customer focus and product development.

He became Chief Executive Officer of Litera in 2016. Litera at that point was a document drafting and comparison business with roughly $16 million in revenue, built on decades of expertise in the mechanics of legal documents — redlining, metadata scrubbing, numbering, the unglamorous machinery that determines whether a contract survives contact with opposing counsel. Over the next six years he turned it into something structurally different. Litera Desktop, later renamed Litera Draft, consolidated the drafting toolset into a single integrated product rather than a collection of add-ins. Alongside it he ran an acquisition programme on two fronts: the Practice of Law, where Kira brought machine-learning contract analysis and Transact brought deal management; and the Business of Law, where Foundation brought experience and knowledge management and Clocktimizer brought matter pricing analytics. By the end of that tenure revenue was around $250 million, and Litera describes the culture he drove as one of accountability, innovation and growth.

In 2022 he moved from chief executive to Chairman of the Board, holding that seat for two years, before being appointed CEO again in October 2024. Litera frames the return as leading the company through a next chapter of integration and innovation, and his stated focus is the obvious one for a business assembled from many acquisitions at the moment generative AI arrived: optimising legal workflows with enterprise-grade solutions, integrating GenAI across the existing product ecosystem, accelerating adoption among users who already have the software, and laying a foundation for further innovation.

Litera today describes itself as the legal AI platform provider that unifies the practice and the business of law, built on thirty years of legal expertise, with an AI agent called Lito, integration into Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, more than 15,000 customers worldwide, over a million daily users, and 99% of the Am Law 100. It is headquartered on West Monroe Street in Chicago.

Education

Valparaiso University School of Law

JD

Bradley University

Bachelor’s degree, Biology