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October 27, 2025 • 16 mins

I spoke with Olivia Mockel, the Chief Brand and Market Strategy Officer at SurePoint Technologies, Debbie Foster, the CEO of Affinity Consulting Group, and Laura Wenzel, the Global Marketing & Insights Director at iManage. The three companies are part of a consortium that supported a new market research report featuring the perspectives of midsize law firm leaders called "Midsize Law Firms Are Balancing Potential and Pitfalls in Charting an Unpredictable Path Forward." We discussed how chief financial officers, chief operating officers, chief information officers, and executive directors are approaching generative AI, data and financial intelligence, technology adoption, and training to help drive their firms into a new era of legal services.

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(00:01):
Welcome to Reinventing Professionals,a podcast hosted by industry analyst
Ari Kaplan, which shares ideas,guidance, and perspectives from market
leaders shaping the next generationof legal and professional services.
This is Ari Kaplan and I'm speakingtoday with Olivia Mockel, the
Chief Brand and Market StrategyOfficer at SurePoint Technologies.

(00:25):
Debbie Foster the CEO of AffinityConsulting Group, and Laura
Wenzel, the Global Marketing andInsights Director at iManage.
The three companies are part of aconsortium that supported a new market
research report featuring the perspectivesof midsize law firm leaders called:
"Midsize Law Firms are Balancing Potentialand Pitfalls in Charting an Unpredictable

(00:48):
Path Forward," which contains the resultsof interviews that I was fortunate to
conduct with chief financial officers,chief operating officers, chief
information officers, and executivedirectors to gauge how generative AI, data
and financial intelligence, technologyadoption, and training are shaping
the next generation of legal services.
Olivia, Debbie.

(01:09):
Laura, really nice to see you.
Thanks so much.
Thanks for having us.
I am really excited to to betogether talking about our research.
Again, this is our third yeardoing this research and every
year I find it fascinating.
Debbie, 63% of the participatingleaders work at firms that have
officially adopted generative AI withalmost half 42% mentioning Microsoft's

(01:33):
copilot, but 81% report of fear ofgenerative AI at their law firm.
How are you and your team atAffinity Consulting seeing law firm
leaders reconcile this new era?
It's interesting that 63%have adopted generative AI.

(01:54):
The reality of that is it's gettingadopted in pieces and parts because
of that 81% issue around fear.
The fear is that it will be misused.
The fear is that people will get lazyand they won't check the work of the AI.
The fear is around billing and clientvalue and all of the things that

(02:15):
go along with the system that issupporting the law firm, the gears
that spin that make everything work.
And so where we have seen those 63%see the success is often not firm wide
adoption where everyone is using it.
It's that the real estate team founda way to do this one thing or these

(02:37):
three things in a more practical andefficient way using a generative AI tool.
And a lot of our clients arepiloting Copilot in smaller groups
in the firm, and figuring out,how can it make our lives better?
But that isn't on thelegal side necessarily.
That's, how can it help me bettermanage my day, better manage my time,

(03:01):
see what's going on my calendar,help me prepare for a meeting?
Whereas the other tools that are beingadopted are much more specific to
the legal work that is getting done.
I have been saying for a long time thatgenerative AI, in order to be successful
in a law firm, requires us all to workon finding believers, people who believe

(03:21):
that work can be done differentlythan it is currently being done.
And those believers are the ones who aregoing to take that 63% and really see
the value and success of the tools thatthey're adopting, but also help spread
the word to other people in the firmto make sure we're using more of it.
Olivia, 63% of the lawyers at the firmsrepresented use data, such as financial

(03:47):
metrics and performance insights to manageand expand their practices with more
than half automating data extraction.
What are the long-term benefitsof leveraging data in this way?
You're speaking my language.
You said 63%.
It's a really encouraging statisticbecause it shows that firms are
treating data not just as a reportingtool, but as a strategic asset.

(04:11):
And we know the firms that use datato understand where they're spending
their time, their resources, theirrevenue, they're the ones that
can make smarter decisions aroundpricing, staffing, and client service.
We see it with our customer base.
Those are the firmsthat have the advantage.
They become more predictable,more profitable, more agile, and

(04:32):
so that data turning intuitioninto insight, it's something we
talk a lot about at SurePoint.
It means they canidentify at-risk clients.
They can spot theiremerging practice areas.
They can understand the matters thatare driving the highest margins.
And those are the firms thatare really driving what we
like to call firm performance.

(04:53):
Laura, 45% of respondents noted thatthe emergence of generative AI has
influenced their firm's approach tomanaging its knowledge to provide better
source data for large language models.
How is document managementevolving to address that shift?
That number is going toincrease significantly.
With the emergence of Gen AI, andthis notion that it has to have clean,

(05:18):
curated, governed data to produceaccurate, relevant results is only
changing the mindset of many legalprofessionals and law firms, who
historically may not have curated content.
With the emergence of a lot of AIcapabilities and AI native vendors, it has
really become a priority for many in termsof understanding that with AI and large

(05:44):
language models, garbage in, garbage out.
So, it's a natural maturationfor these organizations.
They know that they need to identifythe best of their work, whether we call
it knowledge management and curatedcontent, or if we simply identify it
as my best work, my best practice, or,a collection, it doesn't matter how

(06:06):
we define it, but we're going to seethat number increase year-over-year
as these organizations embrace whatGen AI can bring to their business.
Debbie, more than half of theparticipants acknowledge that their
firms have eliminated roles dueto technology in general, and 42%
have adjusted their training inresponse to artificial intelligence.

(06:30):
How can legal professionalstake advantage of new training
opportunities to enhance the valuethat they provide to their firms?
As firms have continued to move more andmore to the cloud, that really speaks to
why roles are being eliminated locally.
That comment about training isreally interesting too, because we
need different kinds of training.

(06:51):
It isn't the old style of training,that train them one time and
then hope they all figure it out.
The adjustment of training is repeatinginformation that people have heard before.
It is enforcing policies and rules,and having people think about how
legal work can be systematized.

(07:11):
Where can it be systematized?
And how do we train our people to takeadvantage of the tools that they're
using every day to get their work done?
As it relates to AI, how that workgets incorporated in is important
and if firms aren't doing the rightkind of training, goes back to what
you talked about before about the81% of people reporting the fear.

(07:32):
There have got to be training programsin place to help lawyers navigate AI
and what it means in their practice andhow they should be using it, and what
kind of measures they should take tomake sure that they don't end up on the
front page of a newspaper somewhere.
Olivia, 74% of participating leadersreported that automation is transforming

(07:53):
how work is done in law firms.
How is that shift affecting revenue?
That's a stat I'm really happy tosee, and it's been a long time coming.
I've been in this industry for a whilenow and wanting more and more firms to
harness automation because I can see allthe benefits and so 74% is a great number.

(08:15):
We know it helps lawyers freeup their time from all those
repetitive, low value tasks.
So, data entry, billing,document automation.
And they can redirect thattime to high value work.
The firms that are doing that, they'remore efficient, but they do capture more
revenue, there's no question around it.
Automated time trackingreduces revenue leakage.

(08:38):
Workflow automation or paymentservices accelerates billing cycles.
But it's not just theimmediate financial benefit.
Automation also helps with scalability.
So firms can grow withouthaving to keep adding headcount.
They can maximize theresources that they've got.
They've improved their margins.
They can take on moreclients, larger matters.

(09:00):
Automation's not justabout working faster.
It's about changing theeconomics of how a firm operates.
And so every human houris just more valuable.
That's where the real revenueand performance happens.
Laura, 68% of the respondentssee the relationship between law
firms and in-house teams evolving.

(09:20):
How is technology affectingthat relationship?
This is a question that we've actuallybeen asking in different surveys
and multiple rounds of research, andthe response has been consistent.
We're definitely seeing in-houseadopting Gen AI a little bit quicker.
I think that has to do with the factthat they have IT departments, there are

(09:42):
other organizations like marketing thatare really embracing the technology,
so there's a lower barrier there.
As such, law firms are seeing themrequest this information in RFPs.
But I'm also hearing law firm andlegal professionals talk about how
they want to show that they're usingAI their clients want them to be using

(10:03):
and leveraging technology, but at thesame time, and possibly in the same
RFP, they want to know exactly whereyou're using it and want to limit it.
So it's like this Yin and yang right now.
I'm definitely seeing where in-house isplanning to keep some of that work that
is low risk, repetitive, and just uselaw firms for the value and the expertise

(10:24):
they bring in more complex matters.
We're also seeing a shiftin terms of in-house wanting
some element of self-service.
Across the board, both in-house andlaw firm legal professionals want a
more trusted partnership, so we'regoing to continue to see them come
together, be more collaborative,and possibly leverage some of the

(10:46):
learnings and best practices as weall figure out how to leverage Gen AI.
Debbie, 94% of participants said legaltechnology helps their teams increase
revenue and improve client service.
81% said it helps drive lawfirm growth and retain talent.
What are some best practicesfor maximizing the value of

(11:08):
technology in a law firm?
One of the biggest ones is enforcement.
Making sure that the softwareprograms that firms have adopted
are single source of truth when thatis what makes sense, like document
management and practice management.
Making sure that we don't have any shadowIT going on, where people are keeping
lists of information in other places.

(11:30):
The idea of a firm being able to talkabout their technology and about how
their lawyers use the technology whenit comes to recruiting and retention is
such an important thing going forward.
Younger lawyers coming into firms wantto know that the firm is using a modern
technology stack and then training.
It's so critically importantand it isn't a one-time event.

(11:54):
Firms need to be thinking aboutbuilding a culture of training where
there is continuously opportunity fortheir lawyers and their paralegals
and their legal assistants and theirsupport teams to learn more about
the tools that they're using, becausethose tools are changing all the time.
We no longer get an upgrade oncea year to a software program.

(12:14):
They're constantly getting updated,so we need to constantly be training
and looking for ways to get better ROIfrom the technology that we're using.
Olivia, 32% see technology impactingtheir billing model, but none have
actually changed it because of technology.
How do you see law firms graduallyshifting their billing practices?

(12:37):
That really captures wherethe industry is right now.
Firms can recognize that technologycould enable new billing models,
but they've not yet taken that step.
Historically, billing practices havebeen tied to predictability, and
technology brings more visibilityinto effort, value, outcomes and

(12:57):
that foundation's starting to shift.
And with AI, everyone's asking thequestion, how much is it going to shift?
And it's probably going to be a gradualevolution rather than a sudden overhaul.
I know everyone thinks AI is goingto change the game overnight, but
firms have been using data automationto understand their profitability by
client, by matter type, by attorney.

(13:19):
They have the insight.
It is going to mean that theywill continue to move forward with
easier, better ways of pricing.
They can do value-basedor fixed fee arrangements.
They've got the transparency they needbased on results rather than hours.
I don't think the billable houris going to disappear overnight.
But the data, the technology, theautomation is all there, and I

(13:45):
think it will be a gradual shift.
Laura, 90% of participantsreported building a modern
efficient technology stack.
What are some best practices fordoing so most effectively and in
a way that will allow firms toadapt to a rapidly changing market?
This question is really critical.
Gen AI has definitely risen the stakesand created a lot of conversation.

(14:10):
Some may argue it has created somelevel of chaos, but in order to be
successful, there really are somefundamental and foundational things that
tech teams, IT need to get in place.
You can't really just leapfrog to Gen AI.
You really have to havesome of the basics.
And we know from this research andalso some of the end user research

(14:34):
that we had done, that peopleare still looking for the basics.
They're looking for an easyway to get the job done.
They're looking for an easyway to manage their inbox, to
manage sharing and collaborating.
The best way to get started is tounderstand what the workflow looks like.
Don't make assumptions because, ashumans we all employ workarounds that

(14:56):
we don't even know that we've done.
So it's really understanding theworkflow of your legal professionals
and each practice area mighthave some unique characteristics.
Take the time to understandwhat those characteristics are.
The really neat thing about what makesGen AI so unique is that it's not a
technology that you can throw at people.

(15:17):
It is tied to the human element ofwork and how an individual works,
so it's important to engage yourend users, understand what problems
they're trying to solve, anddon't just throw the tech at them.
It's a measured, pragmatic approach.
I don't think there's any shortcut thatany of us can take to the land of Gen AI.

(15:38):
We have to take the right steps,getting clean, centralized, governed
content, understanding the workflow, theprocesses, so creating their best work
product is not the end of their workflow.
They have to upload it to a court site.
They have to get astakeholder to review it.
They need to get signatures.
It's really understanding thatworkflow and piecing it together

(15:59):
for your legal professionals.
This is Ari Kaplan speaking withOlivia Mockel, the Chief Brand and
Market Strategy Officer at SurePointTechnologies, Debbie Foster, the CEO
of Affinity Consulting Group, andLaura Wenzel, the Global Marketing
and Insights Director at iManage.
The three companies are part ofa consortium that supported a new

(16:22):
market research report featuringthe perspectives of midsize law firm

leaders called (16:26):
"Midsize Law Firms are Balancing Potential and Pitfalls in
Charting an Unpredictable Path Forward."
Olivia, Debbie, Laura,thank you all so very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to theReinventing Professionals Podcast.
Visit reinventing professionals.com orari kaplan advisors.com to learn more.
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