What the route looks like for a firm where the regulator has said governance is the firm's responsibility, the fee earners got there first and a client's audit is on its way. Then sixteen places the work could change once the rules exist.
Certified in the Claude Partner NetworkMicrosoft Solutions PartnerISO 27001ISO 9001Independent since 1999
Six steps, from the first question to AI in daily use and kept running.
The regulator has said explicitly that how a firm's people use AI is the firm's responsibility. The managing partner reads that the week a corporate client's audit questionnaire arrives with a section on AI use, and discovers that two practice groups have been condensing client documents with a free tool since last year. Nobody did anything wrong by the rules the firm had, because the firm had none.
That is the moment the route is built for, between the regulator's notice and the client's audit. What follows is what happens next for a firm with practice groups that hold their own matters, a risk partner who signs the assurance answers, a business development team answering panel tenders, a document system and a practice management system, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace underneath it all, and an insurer who asks at renewal. These examples are invented, and the findings are the ones we would expect in a firm like yours.
Govern
The snapshot shows the partners which matters have touched a free tool.
The readiness snapshot finds personal accounts on free tiers across two practice groups, one used to condense a client's bundle, and a plug-in in the document system that nobody approved. None of it is misconduct. The half-day workshop with the partners produces the policy, the register of approved tools and the one-sentence rule on client matter material.
You hold: A policy to send to the client who asked and to show the insurer at renewal, and a register of which tools the firm uses and on whose accounts.
Stays human: Whether and how the fee earners who used free tools on matters are told. That is a partners' decision and a regulatory one, and we do not make it for you.
Adopt
The managing partner, risk and business development go first.
The managing partner, the risk partner and the head of business development connect to your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace under a signed waiver that names them and caps the team. A company voice skill is built from how the firm writes to clients, so a first draft sounds like the firm and never like a template. This cohort deliberately holds no matter material.
You hold: A connection for those three, the firm's voice skill and the result of a test on one of your tender responses and one of your client briefings.
Stays human: Every interpretation of the law or the rules. The skill carries the voice, and the partner carries the name.
The review
A practice group is connected only inside the approved tool and only to its own matters.
The practice groups want in, because that is where the repeated drafting is, and it is also where the matters live. The review checks what fee earner accounts can already open, and finds leavers with live matter access and a shared drive where every practice group can read every other group's matters.
You hold: Closed leaver accounts, matter access cut by practice group, joiner and leaver handling automated, and then one practice group connected inside the approved tool to its own matters.
Stays human: Which practice group goes first and which clients' matters are excluded by their own terms. The risk partner decides that against the engagement letters.
Discover
Tender responses rank first and conflict checks go back.
Workshops with business development and one practice group produce a ranked list. Tender and panel responses rank top, because the previous responses exist and no client material is involved. Client briefings on a change in the rules rank second, because the before is a partner's evening. Conflict checks are sent back, because the practice management system does that as a defined search.
You hold: The ranked list, with conflict checks marked as sent back and the practice management search that already does them named.
Stays human: What the firm builds first. It is scored against the panel tenders due this year and the practice group's appetite, and the managing partner agrees it before anything is built.
Make and Test
Two skills, tested by the risk partner on the last tender and a recent briefing.
The tender skill is built from your previous responses and approved credentials, the briefing skill from your previous client notes, both in the tools your people already open. Test is us running the last tender and a recent briefing draft through the skills and setting the output against what the firm would have sent, with the risk partner seeing the result. If it does not do the job, it goes back to Make.
You hold: The tender skill and the briefing skill, each with the result of a test on your own work, and no figure from us about chargeable hours.
Stays human: Every claim in a tender and every interpretation in a briefing. A partner reads every line of both before signing them.
Trackside
The policy moves when the regulator's guidance moves.
We keep the connection and the two skills working, watch for new unapproved tools on the domain, keep the policy current as the regulator's guidance moves, and feed the briefings that got corrected back into the skill. The practice group that went first joins the monthly shared session, which is where the second practice group usually decides it wants in.
You hold: A service with a named person watching for drift, and a policy that is current on the day the insurer or a client's audit asks for it.
Stays human: The advice itself. A tool can draft, condense and find, and the expertise that turns that output into advice carries a name, a regulator and an insurer behind it.
Sixteen pieces of a firm's week across fee earning, tenders, risk, know-how, billing and people, each with what changes and what stays with the partner whose name is on it. The advice itself and anything filed with a court or a tax authority are on the list and marked apart.
Part of the business
Verdict
16 candidates, across 6 parts of the business.
Fee earners and client work
First drafts of standard letters from the firm's own precedents
AI candidate
A first draft from the firm's approved precedent, with the matter details filled in, for the fee earner to check and sign.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Engagement letters, client care letters and standard advice letters get drafted from the last one somebody can find, which is rarely the current precedent.
Stays human
Every word of advice, every fee estimate and every limitation of liability. The fee earner signs it.
In place first
The firm's approved tool register, with the matter system inside it. Nothing here runs on a personal account.
A summary of a long document the fee earner then reads anyway
AI candidate
A summary with page references and the clauses pulled out, inside the firm's approved tool, so the fee earner knows where to look before reading.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
A fee earner reads a two-hundred-page bundle to find the three clauses that matter.
Stays human
The reading itself, because the fee earner is responsible for the whole document and the summary only points to the passages that matter.
In place first
An approved tool inside the firm's register, with the connection scoped to the matter team. This never runs on a free account, and the regulator's guidance says why.
Tidying time narratives before the bill
AI candidate
Narratives drafted from the shorthand in the firm's billing style, for the fee earner to confirm.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Fee earners write time entries in shorthand, and someone rewrites them into narratives a client will accept before billing.
Stays human
What was done, how long it took and whether to bill it. The entry is a representation to the client.
The advice itself
Stays with a person
Nothing, and we would say so. A tool can draft, condense and find, and the professional expertise that turns that output into advice carries a name, a regulator and an insurer behind it.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
The thing a client pays a professional for.
Stays human
All of it stays with a person permanently.
Anything going to a court, a regulator or a tax authority
Stays with a person
read in full by the signatory
Nothing is drafted by a tool and filed unread. Where a tool has touched a draft, the person whose name is on the filing has read every line, and the firm's policy says so.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Pleadings, submissions, returns and filings.
Stays human
Every line and the signature.
Business development and tenders
Tender and panel responses
AI candidate
A first draft of the repeated sections from your previous responses and approved credentials, to the word count, with the client-specific sections left for the partner.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Every panel tender asks the same questions about the firm, its people, its processes and its credentials, rewritten each time to a new word count.
Stays human
Every claim, every figure, every reference and every commitment on fees. A tender is a representation.
Client updates and briefings on a change in the law or the rules
AI candidate
A first draft of the briefing from the published change and the firm's previous notes, for the partner to make correct and make theirs.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
When something changes, a partner writes the client note, usually after the first three clients have already asked.
Stays human
The interpretation. A wrong reading of the law, sent to clients under the firm's name, is the thing the insurer worries about.
Keeping the firm's directory and website profiles current
AI candidate
Drafts of updated profiles from matter records and the firm's voice guide, for each person to approve.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Profiles get written once and go stale, so the website says a partner does work they stopped doing years ago.
Stays human
Each person approves their own profile. Nothing about an individual is published without their sign-off.
Risk, compliance and client assurance
Answering outside counsel guidelines and client audits
AI candidate
Draft answers from the firm's written policies and the last set of guidelines it accepted, with every clause the firm has no position on flagged for the risk partner.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
A corporate client sends its outside counsel guidelines or an audit questionnaire with a section on AI use, and it lands on the risk partner.
Stays human
The risk partner reads every answer, because outside counsel guidelines become terms of the retainer and a wrong answer is a breach on day one.
In place first
Written positions on confidentiality, data handling and AI use that the firm will stand behind. Govern produces the AI one, and the regulator's guidance tells you what the other two must cover.
Conflict checks and client onboarding
Plain workflow wins
A defined search in the practice management system and an onboarding checklist in a form, both of which the firm already has. No AI in either, and the regulator would not want one there.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Checks run through the practice management system against the client database.
Stays human
A person always decides a conflict.
Keeping the AI policy current as the regulator's guidance moves
AI candidate
Proposed updates drafted from the new guidance against the current policy, for the risk partner to accept or reject.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
The firm's policy was written once, and the guidance it rests on has moved twice since.
Stays human
The policy itself. A tool proposes an edit and the risk partner decides what the firm's position is.
Knowledge and precedents
Know-how notes from completed matters
AI candidate
A first draft of the know-how note from the matter's documents, inside the approved tool, for the fee earner to correct and for the know-how lead to approve.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
What was learned on a matter stays with the fee earner who ran it, because writing it up is unbilled time.
Stays human
Everything that could identify the client, and the decision about what was learned.
In place first
A connection scoped to the matter team, and a rule on what leaves the matter. This comes after the permissions review and never before it.
Finding the precedent that already exists
Plain workflow wins
A precedent bank with one current version of each document and a named owner. That is a filing job rather than an AI one, and until it is done any tool will find the wrong version faster.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Fee earners redraft from scratch because they cannot find the precedent, or find three versions and do not know which is current.
Stays human
Which version is current.
Turning a training session into something people can keep
AI candidate
The session recorded and turned into a know-how note with the points the presenter made and the questions that followed, for the presenter to check and the know-how lead to file.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Internal training happens, and nothing written survives it.
Stays human
Anything that reads as advice, and anything about a client.
Finance and billing
Chasing unpaid bills
Plain workflow wins
A reminder rule in the practice management system. No AI in it.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
Credit control sends the same reminders on the same cycle by hand.
Stays human
The call to a client who matters.
People and secretarial
Joiners, leavers and matter access
Plain workflow wins
One starter form that creates the login, the matter system seat and the document system profile, and one leaving date that removes all three and the matter access with them. Process automation with no AI in it, and in a firm it is what makes the permissions review pass.
How it works today, and what stays human
The work today
A new fee earner gets a login, a matter system seat and a document system profile by hand, and a leaver keeps access to matters for weeks.
Stays human
The decision to hire and the leaving date.
Nothing on this page matches both of those. Try another part of the business or another verdict, or tell us what you had in mind.
The hard rule
No client matter material outside the firm's approved register, and no advice from a tool
Two rules, each one sentence long, and both in the policy before anything is connected. Client matter material stays inside the tools on the firm's approved register, on the firm's accounts, and never on a personal one. And the advice itself is never a candidate: a tool can draft, condense and find, and the professional expertise that turns that output into advice carries a name, a regulator and an insurer behind it.
The permissions review is where the first rule gets tested. A firm that has grown by practice group usually has leavers with live matter access and drives where every group can read every other group's matters, and that is true whether or not anyone connects a tool. Connecting one would turn a dormant permission into a live one, which is why joiner and leaver handling gets automated before any practice group is connected.
Independent since 1999 and audited to ISO 27001 and ISO 9001.
Law and accountancy firms are the sector where the regulator has done the most to make the governance question a firm's own.
The process behind it is the same ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 audited one that has run every client engagement since 1999.
Law and accountancy firms will be named here once the first ones agree to it. Proof carries the full position.
Thirty minutes with the risk partner. We will tell you where a firm like yours would start, which of the candidates above are worth doing first and which we would send back.
The readiness snapshot and the policy that follows it are written to be shown to an insurer at renewal and to a client at audit. Say which when you book and we will start there.
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