Business of law: best examples in legal work

Read the other FT Innovative Lawyers North America ‘Best practice case studies’, which showcase the standout innovations made for and by people working in the legal sector:

Practice of law
In-house

Standout

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe: WINNER
Originality: 8; Leadership: 9; Impact: 8; Total: 25
Orrick partnered with Italian venture capital group Pi Campus’s Pi School programme, which provides software engineers with real-world industry experience, to develop a machine-learning tool for use by the firm. It uses natural language processing to analyse client data and tag it with descriptions, such as a client’s sector. The tool’s accuracy on client tagging is 90 per cent, compared with 50 per cent when done by people.

BakerHostetler

O: 9; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 24

The information services department at BakerHostetler improved a litigation analytics tool by adding a generative AI element that can extract data from PDFs and Microsoft Word documents to identify patterns that had previously been missed. Clients can see the data visualised for a clearer picture of trends across litigation, transactions and legal spend.

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius

O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24

The firm launched a tool to give its lawyers easy access to important information about clients — for example, what they need to know when working with a new client for the first time. It combines the firm’s existing data on clients and active legal matters with third-party information — such as daily stock prices, news stories, and Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Highly commended

White & Case
O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22
The client experience team at White & Case developed a platform on which “client experience blueprints” record specific preferences, sticking points and other information. The aim is to create a more consistent experience for clients globally, and to help lawyers anticipate their needs. The “blueprints” are in use across the firm, including in project development and finance, M&A, and commercial litigation practices.

Reed Smith
O: 6; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 21
A new platform at Reed Smith automates the allocation of work to organise resources efficiently, optimise pricing, and involve associates in bids for work in a more consistent way. AI helps to match lawyers’ particular skills with available work. More than 95 per cent of associates at the firm use the platform.

Commended

McDermott Will & Emery
O: 6; L: 8; I: 6; Total: 20
The knowledge management team at the firm created a searchable hub, for M&A and private equity work, which organises key data and provides insights on clients, deal dates, and values and agreement types. The team can collate relevant information for new matters based on lawyers’ past searches and proactively send it to them.

Ballard Spahr
O: 7; L: 5; I: 7; Total: 19
The client value and innovation team developed a tool, Cognitive Services, that uses generative AI and a Microsoft suite of off-the-shelf AI tools to spot patterns in profitable and unprofitable legal work. It then applies the lessons learned to future client work and business development.

Standout

Kirkland & Ellis: WINNER
Originality: 7; Leadership: 9; Impact: 9; Total: 25
The investment funds team built a platform, SideTrack, that automates the creation and tracking of side letters. These contain additional terms agreed in contracts that vary between many separate investors. The side letters are included in information, dubbed “most favoured nation” documents, where they can be viewed and commented on by investors. SideTrack allows efficient processing of such documents, often hundreds of pages, and tracks side letters globally to avoid duplication of terms. It stores 100,000 side-letter provisions and has been used in more than 300 matters since its launch in 2023. Commended individual: James Desjardins

Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders
O: 8; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 24
The firm has released its own generative AI application, Athena, which uses OpenAI’s chatbot system but ensures client data is not shared externally — to avoid privacy and data security concerns. Athena has been released across the firm, after being trialled in the marketing department. Of the 500 users a day, 150 are lawyers.

Ballard Spahr
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23
The fintech team created an application that handles business licences and government obligations for consumer financial services clients, with dashboards and checklists to help clients navigate licensing requirements and filing deadlines for each US state. The application, which is free, is run by a team of lawyers who respond to any legal queries that arise. Commended individual: Lisa Lanham

Cooley
O: 8; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 23
Last year, the firm launched an improved version of its Vanilla platform, which is focused on venture capital and other asset managers. It helps to set up, administer, and close private investment funds. Added services include compliance with sanction requirements.

Highly commended

King & Spalding
O: 7; L: 7; I: 8; Total: 22
The ediscovery practice has made a number of updates to its technology, including a document review system for data contained in communication apps such as Slack, Teams and WhatsApp. One new tool helps to identify and log privileged information in large data sets, while another automatically removes irrelevant documents from searches.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21
The asset management department worked with the IT team to create a platform that helps clients manage fund administration while ensuring regulatory compliance. The service was developed for private equity group Glendower Capital, but is now available to other clients.

Commended

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
O: 7; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 20
The knowledge management and practice services team worked with the intellectual property practice to create VizBridge. This presents clients’ trademark portfolios and their product development plans as an interactive world map, to aid strategic decision making. Commended individual: Rachelle Dubow

Reed Smith
O: 7; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 20
The financial services litigation team created an app that helps paralegals and lawyers draft litigation briefs faster and more cheaply. Although the app’s first drafts must be checked and amended by lawyers, the firm estimates the overall time to produce a high-quality brief is cut by 50 per cent or more. Commended individual: Diane Bettino

Eversheds Sutherland
O: 6; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 19
The firm developed a searchable database of legal requirements for Meta — owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — covering data security requirements in jurisdictions across the globe.

Ropes & Gray
O: 7; L: 6; I: 6; Total: 19
In partnership with civil rights lawyer Andrew Stroth and campaign group Truth, Hope and Justice, the firm led a project involving more than 30 law firms to establish a database of police misconduct cases in Chicago and Philadelphia. They analysed data surrounding settlements and verdicts to guide state and city authorities on how to improve practices and enact reform.

Standout

Mayer Brown: WINNER
Originality: 8; Leadership: 8; Impact: 8; Total: 24
The firm launched a “technology general counsel in residence” programme in early 2023, in which an experienced, senior in-house lawyer from a tech company takes up an adviser role on a short-term secondment to Mayer Brown. The scheme, which is modelled on similar initiatives in the venture capital industry, helps the firm’s lawyers to learn about the legal needs of tech start-ups. So far, two general counsels have participated.

Goodwin
O: 8; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 23
The firm is exploring “use cases” for generative artificial intelligence and training lawyers and other staff in the technology. Exercises include a “test kitchen” programme, where lawyers and business professionals at all levels are developing and trialling the way that generative AI could work in practice. Collaboration and sharing knowledge across disciplines are emphasised. Nearly 160 such use cases have been identified so far, with the firm planning to develop and implement a number of them in the coming months.

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
O: 8; L: 9; I: 6; Total: 23
The firm introduced a policy in 2022 whereby new associates avoid any billable-hours targets for the first six months and are allotted time to work on pro bono projects, as well as research, and non-billable work with clients. Training, shadowing opportunities and mentorship have also been added. Orrick reports that this approach has improved lawyer performance and benefited clients, as they are billed less often for work by very junior lawyers.

Highly commended

Davis Wright Tremaine
O: 8; L: 8; I: 6; Total: 22
In 2023, the firm launched a programme to reduce unconscious bias in partner evaluation, admission and pay meetings. Participants receive training on unconscious bias, and one is nominated as a “bias interrupter” to call out any examples they see during a meeting. They dub it “throwing a bias flag” — a reference to American football refereeing — to call for a pause, in order to review and assess a statement for unconscious bias.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges
O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22
The WeilPride programme highlights LGBTQ+ issues and provides pro bono support to several non-profit groups supporting the queer community. Within the firm, it has supported the rollout of a family benefits scheme, including financial contributions for fertility treatment, adoption and surrogacy, as well as providing advice and support through the network. The proportion of LGBTQ+ law students in “stepping stone” summer associate roles at the firm in 2023 was up 10 percentage points, to 18.2 per cent, on 2020, when the family benefits initiative began. Commended individual: Justin Lee

White & Case
O: 6; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 21
The firm has created a programme to help new partners acquire additional “soft skills”, to help with business development, by assigning a more senior partner as a sponsor who can help with networking, meeting clients, and generally gaining expertise. The new partner’s progress is taken into account in calculating the sponsor’s pay. More than 150 new partners have taken part this year.

Commended

BakerHostetler
O: 7; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 20
IncuBaker, the firm’s alternative legal services unit, worked with Georgia State University College of Law to create a course in legal technology for law students. The first ran in early 2023 and guided students on how to advance legal innovation projects. The curriculum will expand in 2024 to include new tech such as generative AI.

DLA Piper
O: 6; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 19
The firm created a corporate data analytics internship programme that trains participants using DLA Piper’s data, both internally and for client work. It demonstrates to them what law firms require. The results have included using data analytics and visualisation on environment, social and governance (ESG) questions, and a contribution to a summary of the risks of artificial intelligence. The internship, which started in 2019, now has seven data analytics interns a year.

Eversheds Sutherland
O: 6; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 19
Expanding out of its energy and employment practices, the firm’s global ESG group launched a training scheme for lawyers in other practice areas on some of the challenges facing their clients — such as energy transition, social responsibility, sustainable finance and climate litigation. Sessions are tailored to showing how different areas of the law are affected.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher
O: 6; L: 7; I: 6; Total: 19
Last year, the firm hired two former participants in its environmental analyst internship programme. The initiative — launched in 2021 and targeted at students who are not in law school — aims to broaden the range of skills in environmental analysis that the firm makes available to clients.