A subsidiary of accounting company KPMG US is applying to operate as an alternative business structure in Arizona under state ethics rules that permit nonlawyers to own or invest in law firms. (Photo from Shutterstock)
A subsidiary of accounting company KPMG US is applying to operate as an alternative business structure in Arizona under state ethics rules that permit nonlawyers to own or invest in law firms.
If approved by the Arizona Supreme Court, KPMG Law US would complement the services of traditional firms, a spokesperson told Law.com, Bloomberg Law and Reuters.
Legal teams “face substantial and wide-ranging process challenges that can benefit from legal expertise and technology at scale,” KPMG said in a statement emailed to Law.com. “We aim to solve those pain points, especially on tight timelines.”
The aim is to “bring legal capabilities to managed services, such as contract lifecycle management,” the spokesperson told Bloomberg Law.
Approval would be “a game changer,” according to Law.com.
KPMG Law already offers legal services globally in more than 80 jurisdictions and has more than 3,750 employees. But bans on nonlawyer ownership of firms in most states have prevented companies such as KPMG from offering legal advice with its law-related services in the United States.
The Arizona Supreme Court’s Committee on Alternative Business Structures will consider the proposal Jan. 14. The state supreme court has the final say on approval.
Arizona has already approved more than 100 alternative business structures, but they “have largely been granted to firms practicing personal injury, mass torts and products liability law, as well as trusts, estates and probate law,” according to Law.com.
For far too long, legal departments have been considered the slow-moving arm of the business. This presumption is true for many reasons—chief among them the fact that the legal department’s primary role is to balance risk with opportunity. Such responsibility often requires endless hours spent analyzing massive amounts of contract data to forecast potential gains and minimize losses.
But with the advent of generative AI, many processes that slowed down the legal arm of the business can be rapidly accelerated, especially when it comes to an organization’s contract data analysis and management systems. In fact, now that our industry has a much clearer vision of what generative AI can do—and how it can improve contract management workflows—tedious routine tasks that previously took up an exorbitant amount of time can be completed in a matter of minutes. These advancements have major implications for the legal department and its impact on the rest of the organization.
As we begin 2025, three emerging trends point to a future where legal teams will have the insights they need to play an integral role in their organization’s revenue goals. Here’s a look at how these shifts will transform legal work, freeing legal leaders from redundant, time-consuming tasks to focus on big-picture strategies.
1. Modern-day legal teams will be more agile, allowing them to move at the new speed of business
Generative AI has ushered in a new era of contract management strategies. With the right solutions in place, legal teams can become more agile and effective, supercharging productivity in ways that were unimaginable less than two years ago. But before legal teams can take advantage of generative AI solutions that are actually useful versus just being cool, business leaders must be more thoughtful about their AI investments and implementations.
It’s imperative businesses understand and lean into effective data grounding efforts to avoid “garbage in, garbage out” scenarios often associated with the large language models powering today’s more popular generative AI platforms. Data grounding will be a key factor in generative AI’s ability to deliver accurate and high-value outputs within contract management programs. Once teams are able to prioritize their data grounding efforts, tasks that took months to accomplish will be completed in minutes. Generating first drafts, writing clauses based on playbook analysis, searching endlessly for contracts that are often kept in disparate systems—these are just a few use cases where generative AI will drive productivity across legal workflows and processes.
Justin Schweisberger leads sales, marketing and strategic partnerships for Pramata, a leading end-to-end contract management platform.
2. Contract data will be recognized as a business-critical asset, unlocking unrealized revenue gains and new levels of growth
Contract data is not only the key to unlocking cost-saving opportunities, it is also one of the largest sources of untapped revenue for organizations that haven’t optimized their contract management programs. From identifying revenue leakage and overspending on vendors to developing more profitable contract provisions and renewal terms, there are a multitude of ways that contract data can drive massive revenue gains. Unfortunately, most CLM platforms fail to provide high-value insights that can move the needle on their organization’s most important goals.
But the tides are turning. Effective enterprise-grade contract AI solutions are changing the game when it comes to how legal teams leverage their contract data. With full visibility into their contracts—along with tools that can automate complex data analysis—forward-thinking legal teams will be able to realize the organization’s contracts as the business-critical asset they are.
Before legal teams can maximize the value of their contract data, it’s imperative that their contract management solutions come equipped with a contract-AI knowledge engine to avoid the “garbage-in, garbage-out” challenges often associated with generative AI tools. It is also important that CLM software includes an AI-powered repository that enables legal teams to expertly organize their contracts and extract key insights from a centralized—and searchable—database. Another key component of an effective contract management platform is ensuring it is not only intuitive, but accessible to stakeholders outside of the legal department, including sales leaders, finance teams, and the procurement department.
3. Enterprise-grade contract AI will allow legal leaders to achieve outcomes that go far beyond the legal department
The introduction of enterprise-grade contract AI technology makes it possible to extend the value of contract data well beyond the legal department. With the right platforms in place, sales, procurement and finance teams will gain access to previously unavailable contract insights that get them closer to their most important goals. Legal teams can turn contract data into revenue drivers, while procurement teams can better manage vendor relationships. Sales can optimize renewal terms within customer contracts and close deals faster, while finance leaders can rely on contract data to identify cost saving opportunities, as well as find—and stop!—revenue leakage.
The reality is now that legal leaders have a more realistic view of generative AI’s capabilities and limitations, they are better positioned to implement processes that maximize the value of their contract data.
One key benefit of the modern-day legal departments will be the ability to create self-service contract management solutions that can be used by business leaders outside of the legal department, including the CFO and head of sales. And that’s the real promise of enterprise-grade contract AI: delivering unhindered access to valuable contract data to the people who can activate it and drive measurable revenue growth.
There’s no question that the future of legal work is undergoing massive shifts. Legal leaders are reconsidering how work gets done and being more intentional about how they integrate generative AI solutions into their workflows. For the teams that are able to capitalize on these shifts—finally able to take full advantage of their contract data—the sky is the limit.
Justin Schweisberger leads sales, marketing and strategic partnerships for Pramata, a leading end-to-end contract management platform. In this role, Schweisberger sets the company’s global market positioning and forges Pramata’s relationships with some of the world’s top brands.
Mind Your Business is a series of columns written by lawyers, legal professionals and others within the legal industry. The purpose of these columns is to offer practical guidance for attorneys on how to run their practices, provide information about the latest trends in legal technology and how it can help lawyers work more efficiently, and strategies for building a thriving business.
Interested in contributing a column? Send a query to [email protected].
This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.
Judge Frederic Block was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in 1994. (Photo courtesy of Judge Frederic Block)
A federal judge’s new book is giving readers a rare inside glimpse at how a judge determines which prisoners deserve to have their sentences overturned.
Without the passage of a key federal law in 2018, A Second Chance would not have been written. A bipartisan piece of legislation signed by President-elect Donald Trump during his first term and supported by the ABA, the First Step Act was one of the biggest criminal justice reforms in the past decade. Among its sentencing reforms, it allows federal judges to reconsider sentences given out during tough-on-crime crackdowns and for prisoners to petition for compassionate release.
Block, who is a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, soon found himself asked to reconsider sentences under the First Step Act. In the book, he outlines the crimes and rehabilitations (or lack thereof) of six federal prisoners. From a former police officer who assaulted an innocent Haitian immigrant to a trio of mobsters, Block selected an array that represents the types of cases that he’s being asked to consider. Later in the book, he reveals the fate of each—whether life sentences were overturned or unrepentant prisoners were returned to their cells.
In this episode of The Modern Law Library podcast, Block tells the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles how his views on sentencing have changed since he ascended to the bench in the 1990s.
In a case that made the news after A Second Chance went to press, Block overturned a sentence that he gave out 27 years ago, during his second year on the bench. Block had imposed a quintuple life sentence on Walter Johnson after the man was convicted of robbery, cocaine possession and witness tampering. At age 61, Johnson has now been released from prison, and Block discusses that decision in the episode.
Block sees a moral imperative for all strata of the justice system to work together to address mass incarceration. In addition to calling on judges to be open-minded when considering resentencing offenders, he encourages criminal defense attorneys to go through their lists of former clients to see whether any would be eligible for relief under the First Step Act.
Most importantly, Block is calling upon citizens to lobby for sentencing reforms like the First Step Act on the state level because the legislation only applies to federal prisoners. He points out that only about 200,000 of the approximately 2 million incarcerated Americans are federal prisoners; the vast majority are overseen by state courts.
Block also discusses the public response to President Joe Biden’s recent clemency decisions and how collateral consequences have influenced his initial sentencing decisions.
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In This Podcast:
Judge Frederic Block
Judge Frederic Block is a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. He has been at the forefront of releasing prisoners and has received praise and grief in the media. Block is the author of several books, including his memoir, Disrobed: An Inside Look at the Life and Work of a Federal Trial Judge, and the reality-fiction novel Race to Judgment, the basis for an incipient TV series. His latest book is A Second Chance: A Federal Judge Decides Who Deserves It (The New Press). He lives in New York City.
A former Jenkens & Gilchrist partner and an ex-diet-drug lawyer are among nearly 1,500 people granted commutations by President Joe Biden in December. (Image from Shutterstock)
A former Jenkens & Gilchrist partner and an ex-diet-drug lawyer are among nearly 1,500 people granted commutations by President Joe Biden in December.
All those granted commutations had been placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and had “successfully reintegrated into their families and communities,” according to a White House press release.
Law.com has the story on the former Jenkens & Gilchrist partner, Paul Daugerdas, while the Louisville Courier Journal has a report on the ex-diet-drug lawyer, William Gallion.
Daugerdas, who headed the Chicago office of Jenkens & Gilchrist, was convicted in a fraudulent $8 billion tax shelter scheme that led to the 2007 dissolution of his law firm. He was sentenced in June 2014 to 15 years in prison for the scheme in which legal opinion letters backed the phony tax shelters.
Daugerdas was ordered to forfeit $165 million and pay $371 million in restitution, penalties upheld by a federal appeals court in 2022.
Gallion and another lawyer were convicted in April 2009 for cheating clients out of $94.6 million in settlement funds in litigation over the diet drug fen-phen, which was removed from the market after it was linked to heart problems. Gallion was sentenced to 25 years in prison, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.
The Arkansas Supreme Court stepped in Friday, when Chief Justice Karen Baker, the new chief justice, tried to fire nearly a dozen employees, including the director of the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts. (Photo from the Arkansas Judiciary)
The Arkansas Supreme Court stepped in Friday, when the state’s new chief justice tried to fire nearly a dozen employees, including the director of the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts.
In a Jan. 3 administrative order, the state supreme court said Chief Justice Karen Baker can’t fire the director of the administrative office without the approval of a court majority. And the chief justice can’t fire other court employees, with the exception of her law clerks and administrative assistant, absent an order from the director of the administrative office, the state supreme court said.
The Arkansas Supreme Court rescinded Baker’s termination orders, calling the situation “unnecessary and unfortunate.”
The events giving rise to the order began Jan. 2, when Baker called to her office the chief of supreme court police and the director of the administrative office. During the meeting, Baker “confronted the director and police chief about their responses to Freedom of Information Act requests involving her,” the state supreme court said, without offering specifics.
Baker indicated that she had prepared letters to fire both officials but was unsure whether she would do so, the Arkansas Supreme Court said. The next day, Baker told the police chief that he was fired and tried to fire at least 10 administrative office employees, including the office director.
A fellow justice who learned of the attempt asked to meet with Baker about her decisions, but the chief justice refused. When asked why the employees were being fired, Baker said she had “millions of reasons,” the state supreme court said.
Some of the employees have pending human resources complaints against the chief justice “for recent incidents,” the Arkansas Supreme Court said. The state supreme court’s decision did not delve into the FOIA request that appeared to prompt the attempted firings.
But a December report by Talk Business & Politics said Baker had contacted the police chief after a reporter with Arkansas Business asked about surveillance footage purporting to show her entering the administrative offices.
“There better not be footage going around,” Baker reportedly said in a voicemail to the police chief. Baker later told Talk Business & Politics that she never entered locked offices, and she did not know whether the reporter had made a FOIA request for the footage.
A separate FOIA controversy concerned a fellow justice, Justice Courtney Rae Hudson.
Baker was the only dissenter when the state supreme court tossed a lawsuit by Hudson seeking to block release of emails to Arkansas Business that had been sent to her by the then-director of the state’s attorney ethics body, the Arkansas Office of Professional Conduct.
The emails, it turned out, “mostly concern operational matters at OPC, including an employee’s request for leave, a proposal for sizable raises for OPC staff, and a disagreement over whether the $195.50 purchase of an air fryer at Sam’s Club counted as a legitimate office expense,” according to an October story by the Arkansas Advocate.
The email clash in September prompted the state supreme court majority to refer Hudson and her lawyer to ethics regulators for investigation for “flagrant breaches of confidentiality” in the suit. Baker, in turn, referred the five-justice majority in the email case for disciplinary investigation.
Hudson did not participate in the email decision or in the Jan. 3 decision curbing the chief justice’s authority to fire employees.
Baker told KARK.com that the previous three chief justices had the power to hire and fire.
“As the first woman elected to be the chief justice for the state of Arkansas in the state’s history, I will accept no less authority than my predecessors have,” Baker told the broadcast station.
A former McCarter & English staff associate alleges that the law firm subjected him to a hostile workplace based on his status as a military combat veteran and fired him on the pretext of violating the firm’s social media policy. (Image from Shutterstock)
A former McCarter & English staff associate alleges that the law firm subjected him to a hostile workplace based on his status as a military combat veteran and fired him on the pretext of violating the firm’s social media policy.
Lawyer William D. Brown Jr., a former Navy SEAL who served in the Iraq War, said he was actually fired for complaints about unequal pay and his push to include veterans in the firm’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Law.com has coverage of the Dec. 24 lawsuit (previewed here), filed in Essex County, New Jersey, superior court.
Brown said he made $100,000 per year in 2023 after six years at the firm as a career bankruptcy associate, compared to $170,000 in base pay for newly hired regular associates. His bankruptcy work was trimmed after a new chairman took over, and he was assigned to child sexual-abuse defense work despite his distaste for the matters, the suit says.
The LinkedIn post that purportedly led to his firing discussed the glorification of violence and drugs in “gangsta rap” lyrics and “radical culture within the Islamic world” that glorifies violence, Law.com previously reported. The firm said the post promoted negative stereotypes of Muslim and Black Americans.
Brown claimed that there were separate standards of conduct at McCarter & English in its interaction with employees “who adhered to political left orthodoxy” and those “who happened to not endorse the same leftist worldview.”
Brown cited an incident in which a tax partner asked him how many people he had killed. The partner later apologized. But the question led Brown to think that rather being perceived as an honorable person who served his nation, he was “feared, loathed and discounted as a mere ‘killer,’” the suit says.
Brown also said a partner asked him “if he was mentally sound” after he asserted on LinkedIn that veterans are paid less than others for substantially the same work and denied opportunities when they speak up for themselves.
A McCarter & English spokesperson provided a statement to Law.com.
“As always with an initial complaint, it tells one side of the story,” the statement said. “Once the full history is brought to light, we are confident we will be fully vindicated. We intend to defend this case against the firm and clear the names of those individuals referenced within the complaint.”
