It
makes
sense
on
the
surface.
Legal
work
is
the
core
of
what
a
firm
does,
so
legal
AI
feels
like
the
obvious
starting
point.
However,
firms
are
more
than
their
practice
groups.
Behind
every
matter
is
a
billing
team,
an
operations
team,
a
marketing
team,
and
a
network
of
business
professionals
who
keep
the
firm
running.
But
a
firm
where
attorneys
draft
with
AI
while
the
billing
team
still
reconciles
invoices
manually
hasn’t
adopted
AI,
it
has
procured
a
point
solution
for
one
department.
Most
legal
AI
tools
already
produce
good
research
and
solid
first
drafts.
The
harder
question
is
whether
one
platform
can
be
useful
to
both
the
partner
running
a
cross-border
deal
and
the
billing
team
closing
out
month-end.
The
“Lawyer-Only”
Problem
The
first
generation
of
legal
AI
tools
was
built
for
a
narrow
audience.
They
could
summarize
case
law
or
redline
a
contract.
While
they
may
be
useful
for
some,
they
were
designed
for
one
type
of
user
doing
one
type
of
work.
That
creates
a
problem.
When
your
lawyers
use
one
AI
platform,
and
your
finance
team
uses
another
(or
nothing
at
all),
you
end
up
with
fragmented
workflows,
duplicated
effort,
and
no
shared
context
across
the
firm.
The
billing
team
can’t
pull
from
the
same
system
that
the
attorneys
are
working
in.
Marketing
can’t
quickly
generate
client-facing
materials
informed
by
the
firm’s
actual
work
product.
Operations
is
still
stitching
things
together
manually.
The
average
firm
juggles
5
to
10
different
applications
to
manage
operations,
and
less
than
half
are
satisfied
with
how
those
tools
work
together.
That
fragmentation
only
gets
worse
when
AI
enters
the
picture
as
yet
another
disconnected
layer.
What
a
Firmwide
Approach
Actually
Looks
Like
Hughes
Hubbard
&
Reed,
an
Am
Law
200
firm
with
a
presence
on
four
continents,
recently
took
a
different
approach.
After
a
four-month
evaluation,
they
selected
August
as
their
firmwide
AI
platform,
deploying
it
not
just
across
practice
areas
but
across
finance,
billing,
marketing,
operations,
and
administration.
The
decision
wasn’t
driven
by
a
single
flashy
feature.
It
came
down
to
whether
the
platform
could
handle
the
range
of
work
that
actually
happens
at
a
global
law
firm,
without
creating
more
overhead
for
the
people
using
it.
“We
have
lawyers
spread
around
the
world
working
across
transactional,
litigation
and
regulatory
matters.
The
bar
for
any
new
technology
here
is
whether
it
can
handle
that
range
without
creating
more
work
for
the
people
using
it,”
said
Neeraj
Rajpal,
Chief
Information
Officer
at
Hughes
Hubbard.
“August
mirrors
how
our
attorneys
work
while
also
delivering
real
value
to
our
finance,
marketing,
and
operations
teams.
That
made
this
a
firmwide
decision,
not
just
a
legal
one.”
That
last
line
is
worth
sitting
with.
A
firmwide
decision,
not
just
a
legal
one.
That’s
a
fundamentally
different
way
to
evaluate
AI.
Why
This
Matters
Now
The
legal
industry
has
moved
past
the
‘should
we
use
AI’
debate.
According
to
Thomson
Reuters,
26%
of
legal
organizations
are
now
actively
using
gen
AI,
up
from
14%
in
2024,
and
78%
of
law
firm
respondents
believe
it
will
become
central
to
their
workflow
within
five
years.
The
open
question
is
no
longer
adoption
but
architecture:
how
do
you
deploy
AI
in
a
way
that
serves
the
full
firm?
Point
solutions
don’t
scale.
They
create
tool
sprawl,
security
headaches,
and
the
kind
of
fragmented
experience
that
makes
people
abandon
technology
rather
than
adopt
it.
A
firm
running
separate
AI
tools
for
contract
review,
research,
business
operations,
and
client
communications
has
a
procurement
problem,
not
a
strategy.
Firms
don’t
need
a
dozen
different
tools,
they
need
one
platform
that
can
capably
and
accurately
cover
their
workflows.
The
consolidation
pressure
is
real,
and
it’s
coming
from
firm
leadership,
not
just
IT.
The
Practice
and
the
Business
The
phrase
that
keeps
coming
up
in
conversations
with
forward-thinking
firms
is
“the
practice
and
the
business
of
law.”
It
captures
something
important.
A
law
firm’s
competitive
position
depends
on
both
halves
working
well
and
working
together.
When
a
single
AI
platform
connects
the
work
lawyers
do
with
the
work
that
supports
it,
the
whole
firm
moves
faster.
Attorneys
can
focus
on
the
substance
of
their
matters.
Business
teams
get
the
context
they
need
without
chasing
it
down.
And
firm
leadership
gets
a
clearer
picture
of
how
the
entire
operation
is
performing.
The
Evaluation
Bar
Is
Rising
What
stood
out
about
the
Hughes
Hubbard
process
was
its
rigor.
Instead
of
merely
testing
whether
an
AI
tool
could
draft
a
document
or
a
contract,
they
tested
whether
it
could
work
across
every
part
of
the
firm.
That
evaluation
took
more
time
upfront,
but
it
avoids
the
more
expensive
problem
of
deploying
something
that
only
serves
half
your
people.
If
your
firm
is
evaluating
AI
right
now,
here’s
the
question
worth
asking:
Is
this
a
tool
for
our
lawyers,
or
is
this
a
platform
for
our
firm?
The
answer
will
determine
whether
you’re
making
a
technology
purchase
or
a
strategic
investment
in
innovation.
If
you’d
like
to
see
how
August
works
across
your
firm, book
a
meeting
with
our
team
at
august.law.