In last week’s Platforum9 Session, we were joined by Senne Mennes, co-founder of ClauseBase, (a legaltech company which built an innovative drafting tool) shared his insights on the evolving relationship between human lawyers and AI in the document drafting process. Drawing from his experience as both a former lawyer at DLA Piper and now a legal tech entrepreneur, Mennes offered a practical perspective on how firms can navigate the integration of AI tools into their existing workflows.

From Traditional Drafting to AI-Assisted Workflows

Mennes highlighted a significant shift in the legal tech landscape with the arrival of generative AI, describing it as introducing “a little bit of a paradigm shift” in how we think about legal drafting. While acknowledging the powerful capabilities of AI, he cautioned against viewing it as a complete replacement for human expertise.

“There’s this initial, inherent sense that the AI can come in and just do a lot of the basic drafting work or basic legal work in general, right off the bat,” Mennes explained. “I think there’s something to be said for that. I don’t think it’s a sort of black and white situation. I think there are definitely a lot of shades of gray there.”

This nuanced approach recognises that while AI can dramatically accelerate certain aspects of document creation, the most effective implementations maintain a collaborative relationship between human legal expertise and machine capabilities.

Meeting Lawyers Where They Work

A critical insight from ClauseBase’s journey was the realisation that successful legal tech must integrate seamlessly with lawyers’ existing tools – particularly Microsoft Word. Mennes described how his company initially sought to replace Word entirely, before recognising the importance of working within established systems.

“Word was never built for lawyers. And so our reasoning was, we can build something better,” Mennes shared. “In hindsight, that was a little bit naive. About two years ago, we pivoted to that Microsoft Word add-in, and it’s really there that we’ve seen the growth that we have in recent history.”

This approach of “living where your clients live” has proven far more successful than attempting to force lawyers to adopt entirely new platforms. By enhancing rather than replacing familiar tools, legal tech companies can significantly lower adoption barriers.

The Billable Hour Challenge

An insightful exchange during the session addressed one of the most fundamental tensions in legal tech adoption: the conflict between efficiency and the billable hour business model. When a participant pointed out that technologies making lawyers 50% faster could theoretically reduce billable hours by 50%, Mennes acknowledged this as a significant adoption barrier.

“It’s refreshing to be able to address it head on,” Mennes responded. “It’s one of those a lot of people like to dance around. I once was in a demo with a potential client, and they were almost sort of embarrassed to ask the question, like, ‘If your clients are using your tool, how are they actually making money?'”

Rather than avoiding this reality, Mennes suggested that successful implementation requires firms to reconsider aspects of their business model. This doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning the billable hour entirely, but rather finding creative configurations. He shared an example of a firm that created a virtual user in their time-tracking system called “Clause Buddy” to account for time saved through AI assistance, ensuring lawyers weren’t penalised for efficiency.

Compliance Considerations in Legal AI

When asked about primary barriers to AI adoption in legal settings, Mennes identified compliance issues as a significant concern, particularly around data privacy and confidentiality.

“A lot of lawyers are still under the impression that if they use ChatGPT, the data they submit to the tool is going to be used to train the model,” Mennes explained. “That is true if you are using the free version. That is not true if you are using the paid version or the API version.”

He emphasised the importance of understanding different vendors’ terms of service, noting that many law firms now specifically request confirmation of abuse monitoring exceptions and other compliance safeguards before adopting AI tools.

Practical Implementation Strategies

Mennes shared that ClauseBase typically works with clients through a two-month paid trial, where they focus on building early wins with “zero effort functionalities” like automated proofreading, AI-powered drafting, and redrafting.

“We’ll try to focus a little bit more on what we call the zero effort functionalities,” he explained. “Things that don’t necessarily require us to do a little bit of preparatory work to surface useful knowledge or to embed useful knowledge into the tool.”

This approach aligns with their finding that, rather than attempting comprehensive transformation, more success comes from starting small: “We try to nail a couple of things very well. Our main goal for the trial is to make sure that people are experiencing value.”

The Evolving Legal Landscape

Despite the legal profession’s conservative reputation, Mennes noted remarkable changes in recent years. “The rate of change that I’ve seen since [2016] has been absolutely astounding,” he observed. “If you were to present me with the general image of the sector and the way that I look at the sector now back when I was just starting out in 2016, it would’ve been completely unrecognisable.”

This rapid evolution suggests that while challenges remain, the legal industry is increasingly open to technological innovation – particularly when it demonstrably enhances rather than disrupts existing workflows.

Interestingly, Mennes noted that ClauseBase’s customer base is split almost equally between law firms and in-house legal teams, challenging the perception that in-house teams are necessarily more progressive in technology adoption. “Law firms get a pretty bad rep. You would think that in-house legal teams are much more on top of this, but in fact there are quite a few law firms that are genuinely looking into this.”

Looking Forward

As law firms and legal departments continue navigating the integration of AI into their document drafting processes, the insights from this session suggest several key principles: meet lawyers where they work, address business model tensions directly, prioritise compliance safeguards, and focus on demonstrating value through early wins.

The division of roles between human lawyers and AI tools will continue evolving, but the most successful implementations will be those that enhance human expertise rather than attempting to replace it, while thoughtfully addressing the practical, economic, and compliance considerations unique to legal practice.