Leveraging Legal Technology

3 Workflows I've Automated for in-house teams. ① Ask Legal ② Procurement ③ Contract Review (not just the review!) 1. Ask Legal [or any department for that matter 🤷🏼♀️] You've heard me talk about legal teams and knowledge management. Long story short, your legal team is answering the same 20 questions over and over 😵💫 A simple way to save a CHUNK of time answering questions from the business (enabling them to go faster) ALL while having complete control & keeping a human in the loop? ↪️ Set up an 'Ask Legal' bot in your comms platform. ↪️ Sync it with your knowledge base (e.g GDrive/Notion/Sharepoint). ↪️ Set up your custom instructions (Want it to tag Bob on privacy questions only, specifically on a Tuesday? No problem).  ↪️ Don't want the answer to go straight out to the business without reviewing it first? Cool, turn on co-pilot mode. The result? 60-80% fewer repetitive queries. Your team focuses on the high value things that need a human lawyer. 2. Procurement Businesses have 100's of tools, but when departments don't speak to each other you end up with duplicate tools & subscriptions 😭 💵 🚽.  What if there was a way for the business to find out in <1 minute if there was a tool available that covered their needs, before needing to spend some hard secured department budget? Moreover, what if I told you, they could kick off the internal procurement process from the comfort of your comms platform? Team member : “Do we already have a tool for X?” in Slack/Teams ✅ Bot checks knowledge base (policies, procurement tool). ✅ If a match is found, it shares the approved tool & owner to contact. ✅ If not, the bot can ask the user for more info and direct them with next steps to kick off the procurement process from inside Slack/Teams. Ensuring your users ACTUALLY follow the process, without adding friction. Did I just see your CFO cry tears of joy? 3. Third Party Vendor Contract Review & Project Management Getting AI to redline a contract (as a first pass) is a huge win, but there's still the other pieces of the process missing, like: 🤷🏼♀️ The business figuring out IF legal review is even needed (according to company policy). 📨 The business actually submitting the contract to legal. 😩 Managing review capacity within the legal team. 🖥️ Getting the legal team to log & update the PM tool. The list never ends. Legal reviews only what actually needs their eyes, turnaround times improve, and the business stops pinging the team for “update pls?” in Slack : ) TLDR; Most legal teams are drowning in admin work that could be automated. I've built all of these using simple processes and tools (that I've found most businesses have). You also know I love a good Figma flow. So I’ve built them for all three of the above (see a sneak peak below). Want the entire thing? Comment "FLOWS" and I'll send them over. Also, tell me what you want to see - more of the above or step-by-step how-to build videos?

Dear Richard - In your recent Times article, you wrote “If the leaders of most AI companies are right about the speed of technical advance, there will be little work left for traditional lawyers by 2035” I think sweeping predictions like this are unhelpful. They risk causing unnecessary anxiety for lawyers & law students. I feel like we have been here before. 17 years ago in your book “The End of Lawyers?” you forecast the same thing - that robots would take all the lawyer jobs. Yet there are far more lawyers now I disagree with your view & set out my reasons in a recent article for the Gazette of the Law Society of England & Wales (link in comments). In summary: Why lawyers will thrive alongside AI: 1. AI makes the world more complex & lawyers thrive on complexity: Every tech advance brings new legal issues. Email didn’t reduce legal work - it created more (especially in discovery). People are now recording meetings with AI - those transcripts will be litigation gold. Additionally AI will spawn entirely new practice areas, just like privacy & cybersecurity law emerged from digital transformation 2. It’s tech, not magic: Capability doesn’t guarantee adoption. Tech uptake is often slow due to cost, complexity & resistance 3. Massive unmet demand: Traditional legal services are out of reach for most people & small businesses. AI will lower costs & unlock new markets. At Lawpath, the AI-enabled legaltech business I co-founded 12 years ago, we’ve served 500,000+ clients - proving there’s a vast unmet need beyond the reach of conventional legal models 4. People level up, they don’t give up: Legendary AI researcher Geoffrey Hinton forecast the AI-induced end of radiologists by 2021. Instead, radiology roles grew. Doctors adapted & now use AI to deliver better care 5. Law is human: Logic alone doesn’t resolve disputes or get documents agreed. If parties can’t agree, it’s lawyers, not machines, who help find resolution 6. Humans still matter: In a world of vast (& confusing) information, people trust human experts. We’ve been able to book travel online for decades, yet travel agents still thrive. Lawpath’s success came not from a pure AI solution but from blending tech with human lawyers 7. AI generates disputes: Companies are reporting an increase in the number & sophistication of complaints since GenAI. Harvard Biz Review ranked “making a complaint” #23 in GenAI use cases. More disputes = more work for lawyers I think the future isn’t human vs machine. It’s human with machine. Lawyers who embrace AI as a tool to deliver better, faster, more affordable service will be in great demand I’d welcome the opportunity for a good-natured debate on this topic at any time. Kind regards, Nick PS: For any lawyers looking to upskill in AI, in addition to my day at NRF, I’m an adjunct prof at Bond University where I research & teach AI for lawyers. Details of the GenAI for Lawyers online, short course are below Richard Susskind

The biggest and most important trend I’ve seen in the legal ecosystem since I graduated from law school 15 years ago is the disaggregation of legal work. It’s a trend that shows no signs of stopping. Which I happen to view as a good thing. It used to be that the lawyers were responsible for doing 100% of the work, no matter what the task was. That’s why attention to detail came to be viewed as such an important virtue. The idea was that if your lawyer could do a good job on low value tasks, they could be trusted with higher value tasks. But then both firms & their clients realized that they could break off certain types of lower value work and delegate it to others effectively. Like providers who handled document hosting or first level doc review. Then we all discovered that software (first on premise, then private/public cloud) could effectively automate document, contract, or e-discovery workflows. It probably didn’t hurt that the economics of all this disaggregation were highly attractive. These developments also showed that highly pedigreed (and expensive) lawyers didn’t need to do all the work themselves. Instead, the work could be assigned to the appropriate provider. Division of labor had always been common at law firms—but with internal staff, like paralegals or law librarians. Now it became clear that the work could be further divided & delegated to outside providers. Things are poised to move even faster. Right now, in 2025, investors are waiting in the wings, ready to deploy large sums of capital into legal AI startups, AI-enabled services companies, or occasionally, law firms themselves. New structures, like Arizona ABS or MSOs, will likely lead to the creation of large providers, focused on even higher value tasks that drive operational efficiency to firms & clients. I don’t know what this all means for the ecosystem or the profession for that matter. Surely there will be growing pains, and things could go wrong. It’s still an open question about how all this will interact with the patchwork of draconian regulations surrounding the practice of law. But personally, I think all this change is welcome. The status quo had its own problems. So to me, it doesn’t matter if it’s traditional tech, services, or some new flavor of AI—all this disaggregation of work is a move in the right direction. 

“HR will not get back to you if the only AI tool you know is ChatGPT.” That was Oyin Olusesi, Lead, Legal Service at Kora, dropping truth at the Business of law conference yesterday. And it was not one of those random quotes you clap for and move on. It hit me. Because imagine walking into a legal interview in 2025, and they ask you: “What legal AI tools are you familiar with?” And your only response is “ChatGPT.” Come on now. We are in a different season. Forget the conventional interview prep, the game has changed. AI tools are not just part of tech conversations, they are becoming career conversations. As I was listening to Oyin speak, I asked myself: “How many can you really mention confidently, Oladayo?” Aside from Harvey AI, maybe one or two… But you know me, to satisfy my curiosity. So I got home, tired and all, and still did my research. And now? I have got 10 solid Legal AI tools that every lawyer (and honestly, non-lawyer) should be familiar with: 1️⃣Kira: Use Contract review and clause extraction made Check: https://lnkd.in/dpmAzzNp 2️⃣Luminance Legal-grade AI: Use for risk detection in contracts Check: https://www.luminance.com/ 3️⃣Harvey AI: Use for drafting, research, internal knowledge (powered by GPT-4) Check: https://www.harvey.ai/ 4️⃣Juro: For end-to-end contract lifecycle management and compliance tracking Check: https://lnkd.in/dzS3PaKK 5️⃣CoCounsel: For research, memo generation & contract review assistant Check: https://lnkd.in/dPz8RrU2 6️⃣ROSS Intelligence: For Legal research Check: https://lnkd.in/dQGvKcMX 7️⃣Spellbook: For Contract drafting Check: https://lnkd.in/dH2EADQk 8️⃣LawGeex: For AI-powered contract redlining and automation Check: https://lnkd.in/dspmjKdh 9️⃣Afriwise: A Pan-African legal & regulatory intelligence (for in-house counsel) Check: https://www.afriwise.com/ 🔟Judy.Legal: African case law and legislation access with smart summaries Check: https://www.judy.legal/ You do not need to cram them. But start knowing them. Start testing a few. Because we cannot afford to be oblivious in a time that requires awareness. I listed 10, but I know I have smart people here. Let us turn this comment section into a resource bank: Which Legal AI tools are you using or researching right now? Drop yours 👇🏽 Let someone learn from you today. If you find this post useful, kindly repost. I am Oladayo Akinmokun Your Cyber lawyer #cybersecurity #Artificialintelligence #lawyers #tbolc7.0

A few days ago, a law firm partner told me something that perfectly captures what's broken in legal tech. Her firm recently rolled out a new AI contract review system. Big investment, months of training, the works. The promise? Associates would breeze through due diligence, catching key issues in minutes instead of hours. Three months later, she's noticing something weird. "The associates are using the AI," she said. "They generate the summary, highlight the key terms, get all the data points. Then they sit there and read the entire contract word-by-word anyway." "Why?" "Because they don't trust it. And honestly? Neither do I. So now instead of spending two hours reviewing a contract, they spend two hours reviewing a contract 𝘱𝘭𝘶𝘴 thirty minutes playing with AI tools that didn't actually save them any time." Here's the thing nobody wants to admit: Legal tech companies are creating technology that increase workloads while claiming to reduce it. The AI produces a beautiful summary. The associate still reads everything because their name goes on the work. The partner still reviews everything because their license (and livelihood) is on the line. And in the end, the client still gets billed for all of it. Associates don't want to review contracts faster - they want to review them with confidence that they didn't miss anything catastrophic. But apparently "confidence" doesn't demo well in sales presentations. What's one tool your team uses that officially saves time but secretly creates more work? #LegalTech #Leadership  

Why do so many legal technology implementations fail to deliver their promised value? Too often, legal teams rush to adopt the latest tools without first understanding their actual pain points. Here are the critical steps that separate successful implementations from costly failures: 📊 Start with Discovery, Not Solutions Map your current workflows meticulously. Track how long tasks take, where errors occur, and what frustrates your team most. 🎯 Set Measurable Goals Replace vague aspirations like "improve efficiency" with concrete targets: -Reduce contract turnaround by 30% -Eliminate 50% of manual compliance errors -Increase client intake capacity by 25% These specific metrics give you clear success criteria and help demonstrate ROI to stakeholders. 👥 Embrace Change Management Technology fails when people resist it. Appoint enthusiastic "technology champions" who can provide peer support and bridge the gap between IT and daily users. Their grassroots advocacy often proves more effective than top-down mandates. 🔄 Pilot, Learn, Iterate Test solutions with a small group for 6-8 weeks before full rollout. That same legal department reduced their NDA processing time to 1.5 hours and cut errors by 80% during their pilot. These wins built momentum for broader adoption. Remember: legal technology adoption is about solving real problems, not chasing innovation for its own sake. #legaltech #innovation #law #business #learning

𝐈 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐚 𝐁𝐢𝐠 4 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐜𝐲. No tech degree. No prior compliance experience. No contacts in the privacy industry. 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒙𝒂𝒄𝒕 6-𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒑 𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒉 𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒕 & 1 𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒑 𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒔𝒌𝒊𝒑. 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 1: 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 "𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲."  I kept telling myself I needed to understand more technology before I could work in data privacy. I was wrong. I started engaging with the GDPR framework as a legal instrument — reading it the way I would read any statute. The technical fluency came through the work, not before it. 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 2: 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐬.  I sought out people who were actually doing the work — not just teaching it. Following practitioners on LinkedIn, reading their analysis of real cases, and asking questions in professional forums taught me more about how privacy work actually runs than any single certification. 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 3: 𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨.  I started writing privacy notices, DSAR response templates, and DPA clauses for hypothetical scenarios — without a client, without a job, without anyone grading me. When interviews came, I had actual work to show. Not a certificate. 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 4: 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐠𝐞, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞.  Privacy professionals who grow fastest are the ones who can communicate risk to non-lawyers. I spent time learning how to translate legal obligations into language that a CFO or CTO would act on. This skill got me in more rooms faster than any credential. 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 5: 𝐓𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭.  Certification mattered — but not at the beginning. I pursued formal training after I had enough context to ask the right questions in the room. It deepened what I already knew, rather than trying to build knowledge from scratch. 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩 6: 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜.  I started writing about what I was learning. Sharing analysis, asking questions, taking positions on regulatory developments. This created visibility that no application could have created. Opportunities came inbound before I was even actively looking. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒑 𝑰 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒔𝒌𝒊𝒑: ❌ Watching instead of doing. ❌ Spending 6 months "preparing to prepare." ❌ Reading about privacy law instead of reading privacy law. The career is available to you right now — exactly as you are. The only entry requirement is the decision to start. Where are you in your transition journey? Tell me in the comments — I read every single one or DM me! _______________________________________ → World Cyber Security Forum (WCSF)® programmes offer internships with proper practical training — the bridges I had to find manually. Link in comments.

I've worked with a dozen law firms. The most forward-looking are using AI to explore the shift from billable-hour to value-based pricing. But that requires everyone - from leadership down - to shift their working behavior to using LLMs multiple times daily across diverse tasks. A recent Reuters analysis by Karen Kwok details why this shift away from billable hours is so urgent. ++++++++++ THE MATH PROBLEM THREATENING BIG LAW 82% of U.S. law firm partners' work is charged by the hour, with senior partners billing up to $3,000 per hour. But Goldman Sachs estimates that 44% of legal tasks could be automated by AI. Being productive can end up generating less revenue. The American Bar Association says lawyers can only charge for actual time spent on tasks, even if AI allows them to perform them faster. When an AI agent drafts an NDA in minutes instead of hours, firms face a revenue cliff. ++++++++++ TWO PATHS FORWARD 1. Replace junior staff with AI Let AI handle routine tasks while keeping high-value human work. But this creates a pipeline problem (which exists in a lot of organizations) - who replaces retiring partners? Associates are already shrinking from 45% of headcount in 2005-2009 to 40% today. Plus, AI still needs human oversight because of hallucinations. 2. Move to value-based pricing Productivity gains boost margins instead of hurting revenue. McKinsey, Bain, and BCG already do this with flat project fees. ++++++++++ THE DEEPER CHALLENGE Under the classic law firm model, revenue splits three ways: overhead, salaries, and partner profit. This means charging juniors out at minimum 3x their pay. But clients will balk at applying this markup to AI agents. Why should a firm add 300% markup to software they bought? Clients could argue they should just buy their own AI tools instead. ++++++++++ WHAT FORWARD-THINKING FIRMS ARE DOING 1. Building AI fluency at every level Requiring daily AI use across diverse tasks - contract review, research, client communication. AI fluency (actual daily usage, not just ‘understanding’) must be as fundamental as legal research skills. 2. Restructuring pricing proactively Experimenting with value-based pricing on routine work where outcomes are predictable, then expanding to complex matters. 3. Redefining roles, not eliminating them. Using AI to elevate junior associates into strategic work rather than replacing them. This maintains the pipeline while improving outcomes. Each firm will choose their path forward. But it has to start with a firm-wide behavioral shift. +++++++++ UPSKILL YOUR ORGANIZATION: When your organization is ready to create an AI-powered culture—not just add tools—AI Mindset can help. We drive behavioral transformation at scale through a powerful new digital course and enterprise partnership. DM me, or check out our website.

How lawyers are actually using AI nowadays? I went down a small rabbit hole on this recently - and interestingly, some of the more advanced legal AI systems are starting to focus on something much less visible, but more enterprise-critical: 𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 The system records the decision logic and execution steps, while AI assists inside specific parts of the process. So during an audit, you don’t send a 40-email thread anymore. You show a decision graph. And that actually requires structured processes, not just generated answers. One example I came across is 𝐞! from Lexemo. It sits in the operational-reasoning layer of legal AI — not writing for lawyers, but running legal logic. Instead of prompting a chatbot, you describe a process: “Vendor processes personal data → require DPA → route to privacy counsel” The system turns that into a transparent workflow you can inspect and adjust. 📍Explore / try here https://lnkd.in/guJsR567 So not drafting - 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. What it mostly enables: --- policies becoming live systems --- reusable legal logic --- auditable reasoning --- consistent execution of legal processes Glad to see transparent, trustworthy AI getting more attention in high-risk fields like law - tools like this, the more the better! Lexemo #Technology #ArtificialIntelligence #LegalTech #EnterpriseAI

A Recovering Lawyer's Guide to LegalTech As April arrives, my inbox fills with messages from attorneys exploring career pivots. "How do I break into LegalTech?" "Do I need coding skills?" These questions echo my own journey from practicing at one of India's largest firms to now leading Digital & Innovation team and building the Indian LegalTech Network (ILTN). Here are 5 Steps to Successfully Navigate Your Transition 1. Build your LegalTech network Attend LegalGeek, ILTA events, or local Legal Hackers chapters. While running The Blue Pencil in law school, I discovered the LegalTech community is refreshingly approachable—people genuinely enjoy what they do, making connections more authentic than traditional legal networking. 2. Find technology opportunities in your current role Don't wait for a formal transition. Speak to your IT or innovation teams about joining projects. Volunteer for internal committees focused on process improvement. These experiences develop relevant skills while testing your interest without commitment. 3. Develop adjacent skills beyond legal knowledge Abandon self-limiting beliefs like "I cannot do tech." Master advanced features in Microsoft Word, Excel, or Google Workspace. Learn design thinking, process mapping, and product management fundamentals—far more valuable in most LegalTech roles than coding. 4. Build something concrete Today's no-code tools enable anyone to create functional applications. Identify a problem in your practice, map the process, and build a prototype using Bubble, Bryter, or Microsoft Power Automate. Demonstrating this initiative speaks volumes to potential employers. 5. Choose hands-on experience over theoretical training While LegalTech programs proliferate, practical experience typically provides better value. If pursuing further education, prioritize programs offering real-world projects over purely academic approaches. Where Legal Expertise Creates Value! Most LegalTech roles don't require coding—they need people who identify the right problems and bring together solutions. Key positions include: -Legal Solutions Architect -Legal Project Manager -Practice Development -Legal Operations Manager Resources That Made the Difference 1. Richard Susskind's "Tomorrow's Lawyers" 2. Communities like Legal Hackers, International Legal Technology Association (ILTA), Indian LegalTech Network (ILTN) 3. Practical skills in design thinking and process mapping Start Today - Start Where You Are Become your team's tech power user. Volunteer with LegalTech startups. Approach this transition with genuine curiosity rather than career desperation—successful legal innovators see problems as opportunities, not obstacles. (and as always Projects/Solutions you built > > Certificate courses) The pictures from the amazing International Legal Technology Association (ILTA)'s ILTACON 2024!