Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Will Seaton, the chief customer officer at DraftWise; Dan Wallace, the vice president of sales for the North American markets at Neota Logic; and Laura Wenzel, the global marketing and insights director at iManage.

The three companies are part of a consortium supporting a new report featuring the perspectives of 31 legal operations leaders titled Redefining Legal Operations to Adapt to Uncertainty and Change.

They discussed the most compelling results, how legal operations teams are evolving, and the technology trends driving change in an uncertain era.

Ari Kaplan: Eighty-four percent of the respondents confirm that the role of the legal operations professional has expanded. What is changing?

Laura Wenzel: This is our third year doing this research with you, and every year, I continue to feel excited and enthusiastic about the responses we’re receiving from legal leaders. Their roles are truly changing, and this research continues to confirm that. It’s beneficial to reflect on how the legal function is evolving and maturing. They are becoming much more proactive and engaged in critical conversations regarding business strategy. With the rise of gen AI, there’s significant recognition, as this research also highlights, that the skill sets and capabilities within the legal operations function are evolving, as well. They’re being challenged to enhance their data analytics skills and strategic thinking, and we’re also beginning to see a growing interest in developing knowledge management expertise. This reinforces the idea that legal operations teams are becoming much more mature and proactive in participating in and driving important strategic decisions, which have historically been handled by business stakeholders. In the past, legal was more reactive and task-oriented, but this research clearly illustrates its maturation and evolution across various enterprises.

Ari Kaplan: What’s driving the evolution of legal operations beyond traditional process improvement?

Will Seaton: This is a significant misconception about the implementation of AI in companies that we should discuss further. People say AI will help me do my job faster, and while that may be true for some tasks, the potential for learning, the ability to enhance what is available to partners within and outside the business, as well as your clients, is incredibly exciting. AI enables individuals to gain insights earlier in their careers and to spend more time analyzing either the risks to the business, the risks associated with individual contracts, or the risks present at scale, including how to respond to those risks. So yes, there is an efficiency aspect driving the appeal of utilizing this technology and rolling it out. However, efficiency is only part of the equation. The quality of drafting, the thoroughness of reviews, the safety of contracts, and reducing the risks to the business are all outcomes that will result from implementing AI in your organization.

Ari Kaplan: On a scale of one to five, with five being the highest, 48% of the participants rated the willingness of their professionals in legal and in the broader enterprise with whom they collaborate to learn a new tool that would transform the way they work at a four or a five. Is new technology getting easier to learn, or are teams just more willing to invest the time?

Dan Wallace: Change and change management has always been a difficult task, and people generally resist change. However, there’s a growing belief that you either get on the bus, or it will leave you behind. Technology is becoming more advanced and user-friendly. There’s a simplification in how people can leverage technology, making them more comfortable with it. This comfort is expected to increase over time, leading to greater adoption as more individuals engage with technology. From an automation perspective, particularly regarding task and workflow, there’s an evolution occurring. Many organizations have invested in solutions that are siloed, creating friction and manual efforts between them. The idea of orchestrating these existing investments is gaining traction. People are beginning to understand that the more time and effort they invest in connecting their siloed solutions, the greater the cross-functional benefits and efficiencies they will achieve in the future.

Ari Kaplan: Seventy-one percent of the legal departments represented in this research offer self-service tools for NDAs and legal intake, among other tasks. What is driving that interest?

Laura Wenzel: The fact that 71% are looking to develop self-service tools highlights the evolving skill set and the relationship with their stakeholders, shifting from a task-oriented, reactive legal function to a strategic partner that evaluates the entire business. As a result, legal leaders are forging new relationships with adjacent functions, such as ethics, compliance and HR, fostering a sense of trust. The idea of creating self-service tools grounded in trust is what’s truly motivating many legal leaders to develop these resources. It’s essential for all of us to cultivate the right skill set and understand our capabilities and limitations. Overall, this is critically important.

Ari Kaplan: How can legal operations teams balance automation with the need for responsible risk management?

Will Seaton: Legal operations teams have an opportunity to better manage risk across their business and the various departments they collaborate with by utilizing new technologies, such as agentic AI and generative AI. These tools can help define specific tasks that protect the business, enabling agents to focus on different design tasks and more strategic activities, including risk assessments. By automating some of the time-consuming implementation tasks associated with risk management, individuals can concentrate on more significant questions that they currently lack the time or capacity to address.

Ari Kaplan: 74% of the participating legal operations leaders reported that they prefer technology solutions that enable their business units to engage in self-service legal activities, and 94% would like to automate more tasks. How are you seeing teams balance automation and innovation with an interest in providing white-glove client service?

Dan Wallace: It’s an interesting balancing act because there’s a financial benefit to using these tools to drive automation that appeals to those making decisions. However, there is a demand from clients who are seeking 24/7/365 availability of the functions they want to use. This creates a delicate balance between the personal, white-glove touch and maximizing technological use. Ultimately, clients are the ones driving this demand because they want availability on their own terms, rather than being limited to when it is accessible.

Ari Kaplan: Seventy-one percent of the respondents are using generative AI for tasks, like e-discovery, contract review and summarization. How do you see the shift affecting what legal tech vendors are bringing to market?

Laura Wenzel: AI really is going to change the way many of us work. It definitely accelerates; it definitely augments. That being said, there’s a lot of hype. There’s a lot of conversation around what AI can and cannot do, but at the end of the day, it’s critical for all of us to ensure that when we’re developing AI, we think about the person who’s going to leverage this capability because AI can do so many different things. For it to truly be successful, you need to take a human-centric approach and make sure that as you bring these capabilities to market, they align with the way that users are working. With Ask iManage, which is an AI assistant built within the iManage Work 10 platform, it is integrated into the workflows that users conduct every day in a way that is meant to augment and accelerate. It’s created alongside users and not just thrown over the wall. Building on that, the other key component to success with AI is adoption, avoiding making users do something different. It’s no surprise to me that this research really highlights the fact that legal leaders are embracing AI. Everyone sees the value. It’s important to ensure that the approach is appropriate for the use case that particular tech is targeting.

Ari Kaplan: One of the research participants commented that some of the junior roles in the law department can be automated with agentic AI. With the recent release of your AI associate, how do you see agentic AI supporting corporate legal operations teams?

Will Seaton: Agentic AI is extremely powerful, and I think some tasks currently handled by juniors will soon be managed by agents. However, these tasks are often not ones that juniors enjoy completing. They were designed for training and delegation purposes. As agents take over more of these responsibilities, juniors will have the opportunity to engage in more interesting tasks earlier in their careers. We have observed juniors, trainees and lateral transfers using DraftWise, gaining greater access to knowledge and having more valuable conversations with their managers and senior legal leadership within their teams earlier in their careers. By tapping into that knowledge and strategic thinking presented by agentic AI, while some tasks may change, this development opens up opportunities for junior roles to become more valuable to the team earlier in their tenure.

Ari Kaplan: Consistent with the year-over-year trends in this research, 39% of the teams I spoke with are building cross departmental apps or solutions to help automate broader workflows. What type of functions are being automated, and how is that affecting the way corporate legal teams work?

Dan Wallace: It’s a natural evolution of what’s taking place. Many organizations began by automating tasks, progressed to workflows, and now they’re attempting to integrate these isolated efficiencies to achieve even greater effectiveness and more cohesion in how their customers, whether internal or external, are utilizing these functionalities. It’s a natural progression. It’s going to lead to increased efficiency. Ultimately, at the end of the day, it will enhance the experience for those using them.

Listen to the complete interview at Reinventing Professionals.

Ari Kaplan regularly interviews leaders in the legal industry and in the broader professional services community to share perspective, highlight transformative change and introduce new technology at his blog and on Apple Podcasts.