In a recent Platforum9 session, Helder Santos, Head of Legal Tech and Innovation at Bird & Bird, and Nick Kosloff, an associate solicitor in the firm’s Employee Incentives and Benefits team, shared valuable insights into how the international law firm selected, tested, and implemented their chosen generative AI solution. Their experience offers important lessons for firms considering similar technology investments.

Building a “Love Story” Between the Law Firm and Tech Provider

The journey began approximately 14 months ago when Bird & Bird’s country head in Sweden referred Helder to what he described as “some kids’ startup” emerging in the region. This initial connection led to what Santos calls “a love story” – a collaborative partnership between Bird & Bird and Legora (formerly known as Leya) that has evolved over time.

“We were very lucky to have the support of our management,” Santos explained, highlighting how executive buy-in was crucial from the outset. This leadership support enabled what would become an unusually thorough evaluation period – a six-to-seven-month trial that Santos described as unprecedented in his 25 years in the industry.

This extended trial period allowed the firm to move beyond initial hype and skepticism to develop a genuine understanding of the technology’s strengths, limitations, and optimal use cases. Rather than rushing implementation, Bird & Bird gave its lawyers time to experiment with the tool, refine their approach, and share learnings across practice groups.

Compatibility with an Already Tech-Forward Culture

The success of the implementation was significantly aided by Bird & Bird’s existing technology-oriented culture. Santos, who joined the firm in October 2023 after stints at a Big Four firm and several other law firms, found Bird & Bird to be “a very tech-enabled organisation” where lawyers were already comfortable with technology.

“When I arrived in 2023, we had an AI playground with more than 400 people running their trials there,” Santos noted. “If you think 10% of the organisation were actively daily trying solutions in an AI platform – that shows how curious we are, how tech-enabled we are.”

This cultural foundation created fertile ground for Legora’s implementation. As Santos put it, “People know how to use it. People wanted to use it. It’s a new thing.” The firm’s existing reputation for technological savvy – “we are known as a bit of a tech firm” – aligned perfectly with their embrace of generative AI.

Prioritising Critical Thinking and Prompt Engineering

Rather than approaching Legora as simply a tool to be deployed, Bird & Bird invested heavily in building lawyers’ critical thinking skills related to AI usage. Santos emphasised that they “put a lot of focus on helping people understand what this technology does” through workshops covering everything from the basics of large language models to more sophisticated interaction techniques.

“We spent time and energy on the critical thinking first, then the tool,” Santos explained, “because it’s Legora, but could be any other tool – the concepts are the same.”

Kosloff highlighted how this focus on critical thinking translates into practical skills, particularly prompt engineering. “Clear communication and instructions is leaving nothing uncovered as to the target, the method, and the desired end result,” he noted, drawing parallels to leadership training he received during his military service in Finland.

Effective prompting requires lawyers to consider what information they want reviewed, the parameters for review, and the relevant context – whether corporate law, employment law, statutory provisions, or market practice. The firm has conducted ideation sessions where lawyers share successful prompting techniques across practice groups, turning what might traditionally be siloed knowledge into collaborative learning.

Proving Value Through Specific Use Cases

While exploration was encouraged, Bird & Bird also identified specific, high-value use cases that demonstrated clear efficiency gains. Kosloff shared a particularly powerful example from transactional due diligence work:

“Traditionally, you would have a junior or senior solicitor review documents in a relatively painstaking process, taking hours to review each document, making notes on an Excel sheet, and reviewing every possibly relevant notion for the client’s interest before putting that into a report,” he explained.

With Legora, the process has been transformed: “What started has now become a system where we can feed those documents into Legora. Legora is able to analyse the documents from top down, covering multiple different notions simultaneously, doing sub-processes for each of those questions, and extracting information in a very intuitive and streamlined way for a report.”

This ability to handle time-sensitive reviews of voluminous documents demonstrates tangible value for both the firm and its clients. As Kosloff put it, Legora is “changing the way lawyers work on these multimillion-dollar transactions, where there is enormous time pressure and enormous pressure to extract, review, and understand information very quickly.”

Creating an Organic Adoption Process

Unlike many technology implementations that rely on mandatory training and usage requirements, Bird & Bird took a more organic approach to adoption. As Kosloff described it, “There’s not been this kind of force like, ‘Hey, join this event, try this stuff out, do this for 30 minutes, put a report back.’ It’s like, as I’ve been advising my clients on a daily basis, occasionally I’ve had Legora open on a separate tab.”

This natural integration into daily workflows led to spontaneous collaboration as lawyers discovered useful applications. “Even after a few weeks when the proof of concept trial began… all of a sudden everybody’s talking about it. You can hear people talk about it in the cafeteria,” Kosloff recalled. “They’re talking about, ‘Oh, hey, I use Leya for this. Have you used it for that? Did you see what it’s able to do?'”

The firm’s adoption rates exceeded expectations so dramatically that they had to limit participation in the initial trial. “Our idea was to have about 200 people at that time to test the product. We ended up having almost 700 and we needed to stop,” Santos explained. “We needed to say, ‘Sorry guys, we cannot control right now, this is a trial, we need to bring the use cases, we need to create evidence that it’s really beneficial for everyone.'”

Transparency with Clients

When implementing AI tools, client communication is crucial. Bird & Bird has taken a transparent approach, sitting down with clients to explain where and how they’re using Legora, its benefits, and its limitations.

“Despite gen AI technology working in different ways, it’s not so different from everything that we do – the confidentiality, the security, data hosting, all these types of things,” Santos noted. “We are very transparent and we sit with the clients and explain where we want to use it, where we don’t want to use it, where we think it can improve their workloads, what it really does, how we can collaborate working together.”

This transparency extends to economic considerations, with the firm developing a framework for sharing AI-derived efficiency gains with clients. While not disclosing specific pricing approaches, Santos emphasized that “one size doesn’t fit all” and that their “pricing is embedded in the needs and the value to the client.”

Lessons for Other Firms

The Bird & Bird experience offers several valuable lessons for firms considering AI implementation:

1. Take time for proper evaluation: Their unprecedented six-to-seven-month trial period allowed for thorough testing without artificial deadlines.
2. Secure leadership support: Executive buy-in created the space for thoughtful exploration and eventual implementation.
3. Focus on critical thinking first, tools second: Building understanding of the technology’s capabilities and limitations is more important than simply deploying the tool.
4. Encourage organic adoption: Allow usage to spread naturally through positive experiences rather than mandating adoption.
5. Cultivate transparent vendor relationships: The collaborative partnership between Bird & Bird and Legora enabled tailoring of the solution to the firm’s specific needs.
6. Identify clear, high-value use cases: Demonstrating efficiency in important workflows builds confidence and encourages further adoption.
7. Be transparent with clients: Open communication about AI usage builds trust and sets appropriate expectations.

A New Paradigm for Legal Tech Implementation

What emerges from Bird & Bird’s experience is a new paradigm for legal technology implementation – one that emphasises longer evaluation periods, deeper integration between vendors and firms, and a focus on lawyer upskilling rather than simply deploying new tools.

As Santos summarised, their success wasn’t due to “a magic moment” but rather “a mix of everything – people, culture, processes, the moment, the hype.” This holistic approach has created a foundation for sustainable AI usage that goes beyond initial excitement to deliver lasting value.

For law firms navigating the rapidly evolving AI landscape, Bird & Bird’s journey offers a valuable blueprint – demonstrating that successful implementation requires patience, thoughtful leadership, and a culture that balances curiosity with critical thinking.