I was under the impression that I didn’t have to prepare for this panel.
At this year’s RelFest, the Legal Data Intelligence State of the Union — an annual tradition marrying education and chaos — adopted the frame of a trial. David Horrigan, Relativity’s discovery counsel and legal education director, the architect of these festivities, put AI on trial to decide if the innovation in the marketplace comes from law firms or the clients.
And, before we go further, obviously the tech wizards behind AI are neither lawyers nor in-house counsel, but when it comes to AI, “innovation” isn’t really about the latest language model. It’s about developing use cases, tweaking workflows, and fine-tuning skills. Anyone can hop on Claude and any lawyer (with a big enough budget) can use Harvey or Legora, but it takes real effort and experimentation to come up with an innovation that improves the delivery of legal services.
This year’s panel structured itself as a trial. Scott Milner of Morgan Lewis argued that law firms drive innovation, while Fiona Campbell of LexisNexis defended the honor of in-house counsel (adorned in her horsehair wig as a former barrister). Presiding over the exercise as judges were retired S.D.N.Y. Magistrate Judge James Francis, Dr. Victoria McCloud, a retired Master of the King’s Bench Division, and Judge Pamela Washington, president of the National Association of Women Judges. As for the jury, Horrigan assembled a mostly media panel including… me.
So I didn’t prepare anything for the panel because as a JUROR, I decided to evaluate the dispute based solely on the evidence presented. Apparently, that wasn’t everyone else’s impression because the rest of the jury showed up with slides picking one side or the other — or inventing whole new answers that had nothing to do with the case at hand… like a real jury — before even hearing the argument.
Well, friends, I take this work seriously. And so I fulfilled my duty as the only juror that didn’t need to be struck for cause. I listened to the argument and evaluated it on its merits.
Milner argued that firms are driving innovation for two key reasons. First, firms have a better knowledge base to work from as they see problems across industries and geographies, and have the opportunity to pressure test AI workflows under a variety of scenarios. And second, law firms are guided by the invisible hand of capitalism because the same forces driving firms to compete for work are driving innovation.
Campbell’s case focused on clients enjoying deeper understanding of their own data. A law firm “sees the frames rather than the full picture.” The inability of firms to draw lessons from the data unbound by the context of a specific engagement limits the innovation outside counsel can really achieve. She brought a key statistic — a survey result showing that 58 percent of respondents believed in-house counsel was the driving force behind innovation while only 1 percent believed it was the firms.
Some of the other jurors and judges sharpened these cases. Bob Ambrogi invoked the DuPont Legal Model and the ACC Value Challenge to argue that clients historically drag firms toward technology, adding that Litera’s spring survey noted that 85 percent of firms said they feel or expect direct client pressure on their AI strategy. Dr. McCloud observed that motivation frames everything and that for firms, problems are a business, while for corporate counsel “the problems that they have to address are existential.”
When called upon to render my decision, I took these points, but decided they cut the other way.
Is innovation a supply or demand issue? Obviously law firms wouldn’t do anything if clients weren’t pushing them to, but just because the market demands something doesn’t make it happen automatically. It’s then on the supplier to put in the work to deliver the product. So I broke down the arguments from both sides. First, I dealt with Campbell’s statistics. It may sound impressive that 58 percent of respondents believe in-house lawyers are driving change and only 1 percent think it’s the firms, but that statistic comes from the Association of Corporate Counsel. A survey of 5-year-olds revealed that 95 percent believe ice cream is part of a balanced breakfast but that doesn’t make it so. A bunch of in-house lawyers think they’re the best? No kidding. Frankly, it’s embarrassing that only 58 percent were willing to pat themselves on the back.
The battle over depth versus breadth was a wash. Does deep knowledge of data help spur innovative solutions? Sure. Does exposure to a wide variety of use cases spur innovation? Sure. No one really sold me on one or the other cornering the market. But Milner’s point about firms competing for business struck me as compelling. When firms walk into a pitch and have to explain what will set them apart in an industry where everyone has the same underlying AI tools, that’s where they have to sell the processes they’ve built.
As Judge Francis explained — while noting that “as Joe is wont to do, his perspective is slightly off” — the market demands a better iPhone, but ultimately it’s Apple that does the innovating. And the vendors are ultimately building the AI legal products too, but constrained by a debate between firms and in-house lawyers, the firms are occupying the Apple role. They may not be inventing the language models, but they are building the workflows and processes that turn those models into results.
Judge Washington closed on the proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” And in the end, that’s the real lesson here — no side owns the entire innovation process. It’s a symbiotic relationship between clients, firms, and vendors learning from each other as they build.
She also declared the whole event a mistrial with the jury hopelessly divided. Fair enough… and I’m still waiting for my $15.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
The post AI Innovation On Trial appeared first on Above the Law.
I was under the impression that I didn’t have to prepare for this panel.
At this year’s RelFest, the Legal Data Intelligence State of the Union — an annual tradition marrying education and chaos — adopted the frame of a trial. David Horrigan, Relativity’s discovery counsel and legal education director, the architect of these festivities, put AI on trial to decide if the innovation in the marketplace comes from law firms or the clients.
And, before we go further, obviously the tech wizards behind AI are neither lawyers nor in-house counsel, but when it comes to AI, “innovation” isn’t really about the latest language model. It’s about developing use cases, tweaking workflows, and fine-tuning skills. Anyone can hop on Claude and any lawyer (with a big enough budget) can use Harvey or Legora, but it takes real effort and experimentation to come up with an innovation that improves the delivery of legal services.
This year’s panel structured itself as a trial. Scott Milner of Morgan Lewis argued that law firms drive innovation, while Fiona Campbell of LexisNexis defended the honor of in-house counsel (adorned in her horsehair wig as a former barrister). Presiding over the exercise as judges were retired S.D.N.Y. Magistrate Judge James Francis, Dr. Victoria McCloud, a retired Master of the King’s Bench Division, and Judge Pamela Washington, president of the National Association of Women Judges. As for the jury, Horrigan assembled a mostly media panel including… me.
So I didn’t prepare anything for the panel because as a JUROR, I decided to evaluate the dispute based solely on the evidence presented. Apparently, that wasn’t everyone else’s impression because the rest of the jury showed up with slides picking one side or the other — or inventing whole new answers that had nothing to do with the case at hand… like a real jury — before even hearing the argument.
Well, friends, I take this work seriously. And so I fulfilled my duty as the only juror that didn’t need to be struck for cause. I listened to the argument and evaluated it on its merits.
Milner argued that firms are driving innovation for two key reasons. First, firms have a better knowledge base to work from as they see problems across industries and geographies, and have the opportunity to pressure test AI workflows under a variety of scenarios. And second, law firms are guided by the invisible hand of capitalism because the same forces driving firms to compete for work are driving innovation.
Campbell’s case focused on clients enjoying deeper understanding of their own data. A law firm “sees the frames rather than the full picture.” The inability of firms to draw lessons from the data unbound by the context of a specific engagement limits the innovation outside counsel can really achieve. She brought a key statistic — a survey result showing that 58 percent of respondents believed in-house counsel was the driving force behind innovation while only 1 percent believed it was the firms.
Some of the other jurors and judges sharpened these cases. Bob Ambrogi invoked the DuPont Legal Model and the ACC Value Challenge to argue that clients historically drag firms toward technology, adding that Litera’s spring survey noted that 85 percent of firms said they feel or expect direct client pressure on their AI strategy. Dr. McCloud observed that motivation frames everything and that for firms, problems are a business, while for corporate counsel “the problems that they have to address are existential.”
When called upon to render my decision, I took these points, but decided they cut the other way.
Is innovation a supply or demand issue? Obviously law firms wouldn’t do anything if clients weren’t pushing them to, but just because the market demands something doesn’t make it happen automatically. It’s then on the supplier to put in the work to deliver the product. So I broke down the arguments from both sides. First, I dealt with Campbell’s statistics. It may sound impressive that 58 percent of respondents believe in-house lawyers are driving change and only 1 percent think it’s the firms, but that statistic comes from the Association of Corporate Counsel. A survey of 5-year-olds revealed that 95 percent believe ice cream is part of a balanced breakfast but that doesn’t make it so. A bunch of in-house lawyers think they’re the best? No kidding. Frankly, it’s embarrassing that only 58 percent were willing to pat themselves on the back.
The battle over depth versus breadth was a wash. Does deep knowledge of data help spur innovative solutions? Sure. Does exposure to a wide variety of use cases spur innovation? Sure. No one really sold me on one or the other cornering the market. But Milner’s point about firms competing for business struck me as compelling. When firms walk into a pitch and have to explain what will set them apart in an industry where everyone has the same underlying AI tools, that’s where they have to sell the processes they’ve built.
As Judge Francis explained — while noting that “as Joe is wont to do, his perspective is slightly off” — the market demands a better iPhone, but ultimately it’s Apple that does the innovating. And the vendors are ultimately building the AI legal products too, but constrained by a debate between firms and in-house lawyers, the firms are occupying the Apple role. They may not be inventing the language models, but they are building the workflows and processes that turn those models into results.
Judge Washington closed on the proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” And in the end, that’s the real lesson here — no side owns the entire innovation process. It’s a symbiotic relationship between clients, firms, and vendors learning from each other as they build.
She also declared the whole event a mistrial with the jury hopelessly divided. Fair enough… and I’m still waiting for my $15.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
The post AI Innovation On Trial appeared first on Above the Law.
