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AI is coming into authorized workflows with a way of inevitability. To borrow from Hemingway, think about a dialog in 5 to 10 years between two Managing Companions:
“How did your agency’s authorized workflows get so utterly taken over by AI?” “Two methods,” the opposite replies. “Steadily, then all of a sudden.”
This text just isn’t about whether or not that consequence is correct or mistaken or whether or not AI is sweet or bad. AI is, basically, a device — like many others which have come earlier than it. Nonetheless, this explicit device can more and more run enterprise processes autonomously, together with authorized workflows. As such, it carries important transformational potential and danger.
Assuming the trajectory proves true, the query turns into: How can we design the human into trendy authorized workflows? How human ought to they be?
Just lately, the authors of this text, three data and innovation professionals working in legislation corporations and one co-founder of an organization serving the legal-tech business, participated in a panel dialogue on AI Overload, a rising phenomenon introduced on by the flood of GenAI instruments coming into the authorized sector. It rapidly turned obvious that we have been solely scratching the floor of a much more basic phenomenon.
Throughout our three corporations, just a few clear themes emerged:
1. Adopting AI instruments has already turn out to be enterprise as normal in lots of corporations. 2. AI is driving demand for brand new types of cross-functional collaboration and redefining roles, fueling momentum for innovation. 3. The tempo of adoption is accelerating, pushed by each top-down curiosity and bottom-up experimentation.
In some ways, new norms have already been set irreversibly. Whereas not each AI device will face up to the check of time, the general impression of disruptive AI is simple. It’s reshaping authorized workflows and reworking agency operations in methods extra profound than even the transition to the cloud.
Sarah Hirebet factors out {that a} new problem when investing, as Stradley Ronon has carried out in a number of most popular GenAI instruments, is to manage the noise and clearly articulate and talk throughout the agency the place and the way these new capabilities can realistically assist authorized professionals. Specifically, the communication between the follow teams and the data staff is essential: “Our administration committee is doing a improbable job with management right here by highlighting the experience of the KM staff. We honor that collaborative strategy by pursuing fixed dialogue with the follow teams in order that they really feel heard about what they assume is vital.”
This technique avoids the chance of investing in capabilities that end-users are unaware of by front-loading change administration efforts. It is usually essential to forestall the chance of software sprawl as a result of legal professionals have transparency in how their necessities are recorded and regarded within the decision-making course of.
A part of making these efforts profitable is providing actual worth to the legal professionals who make investments their time within the piloting and decision-making course of. A technique Stradley did this was by way of a big funding in rigorously designed, sensible coaching. ”For this reason Stradley has sought out partnerships with authorized tech distributors, which have included co-creating the pioneering program Stradley Labs Authorized GenAI Drivers Certification, which gives hands-on follow, hackathons, intensive assist with ethics necessities and shopper communications, in addition to 13 hours of CLE credit.” Hirebet notes that Stradley finds vendor relationships convey much more worth when they’re prepared to transcend an unique deal with their platform and actually spend money on serving to legal professionals construct the core abilities they should embrace the transformative potential of GenAI thoughtfully.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know why many corporations face a “do or die” second — or no less than, a seismic shift pushed by a brand new technological paradigm.
But, as stewards of our corporations’ mental property and information, to not point out the know-how itself, we should ask ourselves: What sort of agency can we wish to turn out to be? Ought to we be capable to ship authorized work end-to-end with AI in just some years?
Are we ready, prepared, and prepared to let human involvement lower inside authorized workflows?
Contemplating the five-to-ten-year horizon belongs firmly in at the moment’s strategic roadmap. Strategic path should form how we consider AI instruments, distributors, and their product roadmaps now, not later.
Sarah Pullin explains: “Our selections relating to AI at Baker McKenzie are grounded in a firmwide imaginative and prescient that integrates our shopper wants and our content material, information, and experience methods. This imaginative and prescient is operationalized by way of numerous initiatives, together with collaborating with trusted third events. We constantly assess shifts within the views of our shoppers and the authorized and enterprise panorama, asking a basic query: How will this drive measurable worth? That lens informs our strategy to content material and information high quality, governance, and danger transparency, guaranteeing that our information and enterprise programs are optimized for compliance and effectivity and primed for AI enablement. We outline success by way of tangible outcomes and in the end our capacity to ship high-quality, insight-driven companies to our shoppers.”
Clearly, all three corporations represented by the co-authors of this text make use of well-defined frameworks and governance fashions supported by mature, forward-looking methods that permit for speedy however accountable technological change. This structured, deliberate strategy ensures they will undertake applied sciences that ship actual, tangible worth to authorized workflows.
On the similar time, the human dimension stays central. Cross-firm communication, interdisciplinary process forces, and devoted committees are important to make sure that points like ethics, sustainability, strategic alignment, and competitiveness are appropriately weighed.
At Okay&L Gates, Carolyn Austin has led a number of initiatives to determine robust collaborative networks throughout the agency. From formal committees and small working teams — specializing in particular GenAI use circumstances, reviewing challenges and suggestions — to PUG (Energy Consumer Group) groups the place the subsequent technology of legal professionals are inspired to have interaction. Carolyn says, “Due to the good curiosity in GenAI proper now, we have now a wealthy alternative to have interaction our neighborhood of authorized professionals, together with senior companions, new associates, and allied professionals, in follow innovation. Involving process forces with deliberately various roles, a number of talent units, and complementary experience tends to floor fascinating insights. We’re occupied with seeing if new roles develop out of this artistic collaboration. As a worldwide agency, getting a broad, worldwide view from throughout the agency is vital for us, and we imagine this may assist us hold our AI initiatives grounded, human-centered, and aware of our shoppers.”
So, why can we, three legislation corporations and a vendor, deal with AI as one thing extra than simply one other know-how device? As a result of if we don’t, we danger reaching a degree, step by step, then all of a sudden, the place our workflows have remodeled past recognition and probably past our management. Consider electrical autos which might be identified and up to date remotely and require specialist tools to be mounted. Nobody is aware of what is occurring below the hood, and even the standard mechanic’s position has turn out to be negligible. Our aim ought to be to remodel authorized workflows intentionally and consciously — to retain the human component the place it issues most, to remain aggressive, and to stay in management.
To assist discover what this stability may appear like, it’s useful to contemplate two hypothetical extremes: Agency X and Agency Y.
Sort X Corporations
These corporations are all in in relation to AI. They try to ship high-quality work with most effectivity, utilizing AI to generate work merchandise autonomously. Their workflows are powered by specialised authorized AI fashions, fine-tuned for particular areas of legislation or work sorts, and able to working inside normal OCGs agreed upon with shoppers. Human involvement is minimal, sometimes restricted to ultimate approvals for compliance functions. In impact, the authorized workflows of Sort X corporations are usually not human.
Sort Y Corporations
Alternatively, Sort Y corporations compete primarily based on human experience. Their work merchandise are crafted by skilled authorized professionals, supported by deep in-house data repositories, finest practices, and top-tier templates and precedents. These corporations embrace know-how for basic productiveness and collaboration — summarising conferences, managing actions, and translating in actual time — however keep away from AI-generated authorized outputs. Sort Y corporations proudly assert that their authorized work is completely human-made, with companions standing totally behind the outcomes. Their workflows are, in impact, human by way of and thru.
The fact? Neither Sort X nor Sort Y is more likely to thrive long-term.
Sort X corporations might obtain effectivity however will drift towards commoditization. Drawing from the identical data swimming pools and providing related outputs, they danger falling into price-based competitors that drives margins downward.
Sort Y corporations, in the meantime, might face recruitment challenges. The subsequent technology of attorneys could also be unwilling to work in low-automation environments, and shoppers might query the worth of conventional billing fashions that ignore technological progress.
As an alternative, we imagine a 3rd mannequin is extra sustainable: the Sort A Agency.
Sort A Corporations
These corporations are deliberately designed to stability human experience with technological benefit. They combine AI to deal with low-value, repetitive duties, scale back friction in every day work, and increase professionals on advanced issues. They acknowledge that the ability of a authorized skilled lies of their capacity to look at, be taught, and remedy advanced issues creatively, with the assist of cutting-edge instruments and know-how.
Sort A corporations continually evolve their technique, aiming to remain forward of the curve by responsibly adapting to new applied sciences whereas concurrently attracting and retaining prime expertise. They design their workflows with human company on the core — assured that regardless of how superior at the moment’s AI turns into, tomorrow’s subsequent know-how breakthrough might render it out of date.
So, how do you act at the moment to make sure that you design your self, the human, into strategically aligned GenAI-augmented authorized workflows?
First, we imagine there are methods that corporations can make use of now to stability the human vs AI equation. Begin by assessing your agency’s long-term AI imaginative and prescient and technique. As per above, it should rely upon the kind of agency you’re at the moment and want to be tomorrow.
It will assist us think about a future with AI, the place we’re unlikely to be essentially the most knowledgeable or fastest-processing social gathering. As an alternative, we should keep in management by leveraging our secret sauce, which incorporates human qualities akin to the power to forge bonds and relationships with our shoppers, being empathetic, and, crucially, our capacity to be essential thinkers.
Second, begin taking management at the moment. Direct GenAI initiatives in the direction of the locations they add essentially the most worth and tightly management initiatives the place AI instruments may impression your agency’s crown jewels. Listed here are three sensible solutions to get began.
1. Create programs that give authorized professionals and AI on the spot entry to data, i.e., on the spot entry to authoritative data within the correct context. This win-win ought to be a hygiene issue for contemporary authorized workflows, regardless of your long-term technique. 2. Put money into coaching that ensures that authorized groups each have a deep tutorial understanding of GenAI instruments and the best way they leverage statistical fashions to generate solutions that aren’t assured to be correct, solely statistically possible, and likewise the sensible abilities to successfully audit and add the mandatory degree of human judgment to the generated output. That is usually finest achieved by prioritizing duties which might be readily possible for GenAI at the moment and have high-value outcomes. These will sometimes be too advanced to automate, but easy, however time-consuming for people. E.g., summarizing variations in regulatory necessities throughout two or three jurisdictions. 3. Determine workflows or work sorts which might be distinctive or excessive worth to the agency, particularly these the place you leverage important in-house IP and experience. Ringfence these with robust AI governance. Help the authorized professionals in these workflows or work sorts with world-class data and superior tech, however tightly management the appliance of AI and the human audit course of to supply high-quality work merchandise.
The insights shared by the co-authors of this text spotlight the strategic worth of taking a thoughtfully designed strategy to finest leverage the ability of AI applied sciences in the direction of efficient, transformative initiatives. As we discover the inevitable integration of AI inside authorized workflows, defending corporations’ distinctive data and experience is crucial. By specializing in areas the place in-house experience, expertise, and data excel and making use of AI thoughtfully, we are able to create workflows with out compromising the human component and the relationships that shoppers worth.
This balanced strategy permits us to adapt and be resilient in altering instances.
This text was initially printed within the 2025 Summer time subject of ILTA’s Peer to Peer journal (https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/1538025-summer25/21?).
Carolyn Austin is the Director of Apply Innovation at Okay&L Gates, LLP, in Australia. Carolyn leads a staff of authorized practitioners and specialist technicians targeted on creating modern approaches to service supply by way of sustainable data administration, course of enchancment, and digital adoption.
Sarah Hirebet is the Director of Data Administration at Stradley Ronon Stevens & Younger, LLP. Sarah empowers innovation by leveraging what folks know, amplifying this know-how with know-how, and designing processes which might be extra environment friendly, extra correct, and extra joyful.
Gabriel Karawani is a Co-Founding father of ClearPeople. Because the driving power behind Atlas, Gabriel performs a pivotal position in bringing some of the superior knowledge-centric platforms for Microsoft 365 to market, underscoring its essential position within the enterprise success of many organizations.
Sarah Pullin is the World Director of Data at Baker McKenzie. Sarah leads a perform of information legal professionals, KM managers, data and analysis groups, world KM specialists, 4 offshore groups, and KM programs and instruments in assist of the agency’s shoppers and enterprise technique.
