The education sector has been increasingly affected by legal discourse, new managerialism, litigation, burgeoning regulation and accountability involving inspections and audits, and rises in lawsuits. These processes have been described as juridification and have complex effects. In this paper we focus on juridification’s impact on preschool governance during times of increased privatisation in Sweden. We aim to unpack links between juridification and privatisation by analysing the multifaceted issues of how law, litigation and legal discourse become manifested and are navigated by various actors in local preschool quasi-market governance. The results show how intricate connections between juridification and privatisation tend to make public and private relations more legalistic, contract-based and competitive. Juridification and privatisation also increase conformity in terms of, for instance, pedagogical profiles, practices and organisational structures. In addition, these inter-related processes promote and largely benefit corporate group formation and expansion as legal knowledge and economic resources to navigate local preschool quasi-market governance become increasingly essential. This starkly contrasts with the core ostensible objectives of privatisation and marketisation reforms – to promote diversity, pluralism, and a wide range of preschool options for parents.