The legal industry is experiencing one of the most significant eras of change in its history. In this episode of Impact and Insight, Managing Director, The Alexander Group and Principal of SFK Advisors LLC, Sally King—a respected advisor and former COO to several top global law firms—shares how leadership, culture, and technology are reshaping the way elite firms operate. From the rise of business-focused C-suite roles to the disruptive force of AI, Sally brings a practical perspective on what firms must do today to thrive tomorrow.
Listen to the Impact & Insight Podcast on Spotify.
Jeroen Plink is the COO and Co-Founder of Legaltech Hub, and has been a transformative legal technology executive since the early 2000s.
A former Clifford Chance lawyer, he has more than 25 years of experience building companies, guiding startups and private equity investment, and as a senior business advisor in the legal technology sector. He is an accomplished innovator and thought leader, and recently shared his perspective on the impact and potential of AI in the legal industry.
Tell us a bit about your career path and how you made the jump from being a practicing lawyer to the legal technology sector.
I started my career as a corporate lawyer at Clifford Chance in Amsterdam, working on cross-border transactions and seeing first-hand how much time highly qualified lawyers spend on work that is important but, frankly, quite repetitive.
“There has to be a better way to do this” was often my thought during late-night due diligence work, and a conversation about this over dinner with a colleague led me to the entrepreneurial side. He and I co-founded Legistics, a company that built software for due diligence. Two years later, Legistics was acquired by Practical Law Company. After a few years in London working on legal tech applications, I came up with the idea of launching Practical Law in the US. I moved my young family to New York to lead the US. launch.
Ultimately, Practical Law was sold to Thomson Reuters. My Practical Law journey was a formative experience in scaling a legal tech business and securing adoption at the largest firms and corporations in the world.
Since then, I’ve worked with multiple legal tech ventures, served as CEO of Clifford Chance Applied Solutions, and sat on the boards of companies like Casetext, Kira, and others. Those roles gave me a front-row seat to how technology, when done well, actually changes the business and practice of law.
Legaltech Hub is a natural culmination of that journey. We built it because buyers, vendors, and investors all lacked a single, objective view of the legal tech market. As COO and co-founder, I get to combine my legal background, my operator experience, and my work as an investor into one mission: making the legal tech ecosystem more transparent, data-driven, and effective.
How would you define the state of AI in the legal sector today? In what areas are firms leveraging that technology at present, and where is the potential to increase/expand its impact and utilization?
We’re at a genuine tipping point. AI has been in legal for years – think technology-assisted review in e-discovery or early contract analytics – but the public release of large language models (LLMs) in late 2022 completely changed the industry’s trajectory.
Firms are indeed using AI in practice today. Right now, the most common and mature use cases we see across firms and corporate legal departments are:
Document & Clause Work – Drafting, redlining, clause extraction, and playbooked negotiation support, often grounded in a firm’s own precedent bank.
Legal Research & Knowledge Retrieval – AI-assisted research layered over traditional databases, plus internal knowledge search over opinions, memos, and templates.
Summarization at Scale – Summarizing long documents, hearings, interview notes, discovery productions, and even entire matters for internal or client reporting.
E-Discovery and Investigations – More intelligent classification, clustering, and prioritization of large document sets.
Operational Tasks – Time entry narratives, matter opening, conflicts descriptions, engagement letters, and other routine but high-volume workflows.
There are, however, areas where the potential is still under-realized. The next phase of impact goes beyond “co-pilot” features to deeper structural change:
AI-First Workflows – Designing end-to-end processes (e.g., an M&A review, a regulatory change program) around AI from the start, rather than sprinkling AI on top of legacy workflows.
Matter Economics & Pricing – Using AI over matter data to inform staffing models, budgets, and alternative fee arrangements in a far more granular way.
Knowledge-Driven Products – Turning firm expertise into semi-productized offerings – compliance tools, diagnostics, playbooks – sold as subscriptions or fixed-fee services.
Client Collaboration – Shared AI-enabled workspaces with clients, where both sides see the same data, risks, and status in real time.
So, I’d describe the current state as: broad experimentation and deep adoption in certain areas, with a clear path to more transformative, workflow- and business-model-level change over the next few years.
What are some of the challenges you’ve seen in the uptake and adoption of AI solutions in law firm environments, and how do firms overcome those behavioral, functional, or other institutional barriers?
The challenges I see are less about the technology and more about behavior, incentives, and governance. Key barriers to adoption include:
Validation Tax – Currently, in many cases, the return on investment is dampened by the (increasingly perceived) need to validate. AI does a first pass of a task, and then human lawyers validate the results. As the technology matures, this will reduce.
Billable-Hour Economics – If your business model rewards hours, a tool whose headline promise is “do this in half the time” can feel misaligned.
Risk Culture & Perfectionism – Law firms operate in a zero-defect environment. “Occasional hallucinations” is not an acceptable feature in that context.
Change Fatigue & Tool Sprawl – Many firms already have more tools than they fully use. Lawyers are rightly skeptical of “yet another platform.”
Skills and Confidence Gaps – Associates and partners aren’t trained prompt engineers; without guidance, they either over-trust or under-use the tools. Many lawyers don’t see the “art of the possible.” The imagination gap is real.
Client Expectations – Some clients are pushing firms to use AI; others are nervous. That ambiguity tends to slow internal decisions.
What the more successful firms are doing:
Start with concrete, high-value use cases. Pick a few workflows – e.g., first-draft research memos, playbooked NDAs, or deposition summaries – where AI can clearly save time and improve consistency. Measure the impact and talk about it.
Create a proper AI governance structure. The firms doing this well have a cross-functional AI committee (IT, KM, risk, innovation, practice leadership, professional development) that sets guardrails, approves tools, and owns a roadmap, rather than letting each partner or practice improvise.
Co-design with lawyers, don’t “deploy at” them. Sit down with partners, associates, and professional staff and redesign the workflow together. If they help shape it, they’re far more likely to use it.
Invest in training and playbooks, not just licenses. Clear guidance – “use it for X, never for Y; always do Z as a human check” – plus hands-on training sessions and champions in each practice group.
Align incentives. That can mean recognizing matter teams that use AI to deliver better value, factoring efficiency into compensation discussions, or building AI usage into innovation awards and promotion narratives.
Let technology support you.
Where lawyers are no longer cutting their teeth on mind-numbing but useful training tasks like due diligence as a result of AI, AI is not the problem but the solution. Also, leverage the technology to train the partners of tomorrow. For example, Verbit, in collaboration with AltaClaro, has developed mock depositions using AI in a transformative way.
In short, technology is the easy part. The hard part is treating AI adoption as a strategic change initiative, not an app rollout.
Information security/cyber security is always near top of mind for law firms and their clients when implementing new technologies. What are the risks inherent in AI utilization and how can firms think through addressing those?
Security and confidentiality are existential issues for law firms, so it’s healthy that they’re skeptical.
There are certain key risk areas we focus on in conversations with firms:
Don’t Use Consumer AI – Rely instead on specialist tools like Harvey, Legora, CoCounsel, Lexis+AI, August, Newcode.ai, and others, or the enterprise version of LLMs that explicitly confirm that they don’t access confidential data or train their models on your prompts and outputs.
Client Policies – Ensure you comply with client requirements and restrictions on AI use. An AI governance tool like Truth Systems may help here.
Model Behavior Risks – Be aware of and know to look for hallucinations, biased outputs, or “over-confident wrong answers” in high-stakes contexts.
Access & Identity – Who can use which models on which datasets, from where, and with what log-in? A tool like Lega may help gain insights here.
Supply-Chain Risk – Many AI tools are built on top of underlying LLMs and cloud providers; firms need to understand that full stack.
Regulatory & Cross-Border Issues – Different jurisdictions have different views on data residency, privacy, and AI regulation. Global firms have to harmonize a policy across all of them.
Some practical mitigation strategies are quickly becoming best practice:
Use enterprise-grade, non-training environments. Whether it’s a vendor tool or a firm’s own AI deployment, ensure contractual and technical guarantees that client data is not used to train public models.
Segment data and apply least-privilege access. Treat your knowledge repositories and client data as different risk tiers and don’t make everything searchable by everyone just because the AI can handle it.
Create firm-wide AI use policies. Set clear guidelines about when public tools are prohibited, when approved tools may or must be used, how to label AI-assisted work, and when human review is mandatory.
Vendor due diligence. Extend your existing security and privacy questionnaires to include AI-specific topics, including model sources, data retention, red-teaming practices, audit rights, and more.
Monitor and iterate. Log AI usage, review incidents or near-misses, and update guardrails. AI is moving fast; your governance has to be a living framework, not a one-off policy document.
The overall message I give firms is this: you can be secure and still be ambitious. The real long-term risk is not “we tried AI, and something went wrong”; it’s “we refused to engage and drifted behind our clients and competitors.”
As you look to and beyond the horizon in legal innovation, what do you see as the next conceptually revolutionary technology out there?
If you look just a little ahead of where we are today, I think three developments are especially important.
Agentic, workflow-native AI. Today’s tools are mostly copilots: they respond when you ask them something. The next wave will be agents that can take multi-step actions across systems – “ingest this data room, update our risk register, draft the client summary, and route issues to the right people” – all while staying inside strong guardrails.
AI-native legal platforms, not AI features bolted on. We’ll see platforms designed from scratch around AI: data models, permissions, user experiences, and business models that assume AI is doing a large share of the work. That has big implications for how legal work is priced, staffed, and measured.
A shift from “tools” to “operating model change.” The truly revolutionary impact won’t be a specific product; it will be firms and legal departments re-architecting how they deliver value – more productized services, more collaboration with clients, and new career paths for people who are great at orchestrating human-plus-machine workflows.
From our vantage point at Legaltech Hub – where we track vendors, advise firms and vendors, and speak regularly with investors – I’d summarize it this way: we’re moving from an era where technology supported the traditional model of legal work, to one where technology is starting to reshape that model itself.
That’s both the challenge and the opportunity for everyone in the ecosystem.
With the holidays approaching and gatherings of all kinds filling up the calendar, politics is sure to creep into conversation.
Spreading good cheer and civility can be challenging, so Managing Director Jane Howze turned to Mike Mower for his thoughts on how to create peaceful exchanges with family and friends this holiday season for Episode Two of the Impact & Insight podcast.
Mower is the Senior Advisor of Community Outreach and Intergovernmental Affairs for Utah Governor Spencer J. Cox and is widely respected for his roles serving with Provo Mayor Lewis Billings, Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, and Congressmen Howard Nielson and Chris Cannon.
He shares highlights of his political career and how to truly make the holidays merry and bright—regardless of political affiliation.
It’s a wonderfully encouraging and insightful conversation, with wisdom for all.
The Alexander Group introduces its first podcast, “Impact & Insight: Leadership, Perspective, Change,” a conversation with innovators, change-makers, and leaders from diverse industries and interests.
Managing Director Jane Howze kicks off The Alexander Group’s inaugural podcast with Cynthia Jamison, Public Company Chairman and Author of “Shards in My Hair: Tales from Breaking the Glass Ceiling.”
Shards in My Hair is a lighthearted yet cautionary tale about what it means to make it to the top echelons of business.
Cindie Jamison rose from entry-level training programs to chair multiple public company boards of directors-along the way encountering the lessons and pitfalls that inevitably occur over the course of a career. As a finance executive, she endured tough bosses, bad jobs, “you can’t make this stuff up” adventures, and colorful characters along the way.
As a single mom, she struggled financially, emotionally, and logistically to raise four boys. The combination of the two makes for a ride that will entertain, teach, scare, and thrill you.
Her light touch and self-deprecating approach make this book fun to read, laugh-out-loud funny—yet still achingly personal and vividly instructional for anyone trying to balance it all and climb the corporate ladder.
Developing Leadership Capability Across the C-Suite
(A Perspective from Beth Ehrgott, The Alexander Group)
In today’s world of constant disruption — shifting markets, rapid technological tides, uncertain economies — one enduring reality holds: the strength and trajectory of an organization ride on the shoulders of its leaders. For the modern C-suite, leadership development is no longer a checkbox exercise. It’s a strategic, evolving discipline.
Why It Matters
CEOs and the entire C-Suite are asked to operate on multiple planes: deliver positive financial results, build and sustain a growth culture, guide transformation, and anticipate the future. Leadership isn’t a static asset. It’s living, breathing, and must adapt with the same speed and intentionality that companies demand from the rest of the business.
At The Alexander Group, over four decades of working alongside boards and executive teams, we’ve observed that deliberate leadership capability building is the true differentiator of enduring companies. One of the most rewarding aspects of our work is helping clients define what leadership capability really means for their organization — not just for the next hire, but for the company they aspire to become. With preparation, clarity, and courage, these leaders become catalysts for growth and transformation.
The best companies see leadership capability as a long-term investment — cultivating leaders who adapt, innovate, inspire, and translate vision into impact.
Here’s a real-world moment that captures this:
Before beginning two pivotal C-suite searches for a publicly traded biotech client, the CEO and I invested time in reimagining what the leadership team would need two to five years out. Their science was world-class; their pipeline promising. But they lacked scaled commercial leadership globally and enterprise-level strategists who could lead the company through organizational metamorphosis. The CEO recognized that transformation starts with people — but also that leaders must be aligned in vision, drive a “we” culture, and carry both operational grit and strategic imagination. That groundwork shaped not only how we recruited but how the leadership narrative unfolded.
Seven Competencies You Must Cultivate at the Top
1. Strategic Capability
Turning vision into action is both an art and discipline.
Strategic capability means anticipating shifts, connecting the dots, and aligning people and priorities to long-term value. It’s where big-picture thinking meets purposeful execution.
2. Leadership & People EQ
When executives invest in leadership development, it signals that people matter. This isn’t about elevating a few individuals — it’s about shaping the collective DNA of an organization. Emotional intelligence, inclusion, and cultural stewardship turn leadership into a shared language that drives performance.
3. Operational & Cross-Functional Fluency
Complex organizations require leaders who think beyond their verticals. At scale, no function stands alone —appreciating how finance, technology, operations, commercial, and risk intersect leads to smarter decisions and deeper collaboration.
4. Digital & AI Aptitude
Technology has become another business differentiator. C-suite leaders don’t need to code, but they must know how to harness digital tools to unlock opportunity, mitigate risk, and make faster, data-driven decisions.
5. Change Resilience & Agility
Change isn’t an event. It’s constant. Agility helps leaders stay grounded while navigating uncertainty. The best leaders balance steadiness with speed — providing clarity and confidence when everything else feels in motion.
6. Governance & Board Readiness
Today’s executives often operate in the boardroom as well as the business. Understanding governance, fiduciary duty, and board dynamics strengthens stewardship and prepares leaders for broader influence.
7. Personal & Reflective Capacity
Great leadership begins with self-awareness. Reflective leaders pause, learn, and realign — they lead with clear, values-rooted decision-making. These are the quiet levers that help leaders remain authentic, ethical, and sustainable.
A Parting Thought
If leadership capability development is framed merely as a program or HR initiative, it will always fall short. Done right, it becomes part of the operating system — it’s how teams learn faster, collaborate more deeply, and stay one step ahead of disruption.
Over our more than 40 years at The Alexander Group, working with clients globally, we’ve seen how building intentional leadership capabilities not only elevates individual executives but also transforms the enterprise itself. And it’s an honor to partner with leaders who are willing to lean into that work — not just for today, but for what’s next.
Since our founding in 1984, our firm has conducted dozens of COO searches for the nation’s leading law firms. Over that time, one truth has become clear: the search doesn’t end when the candidate accepts the position. Running a large law firm today is complex. The modern COO must lead international management teams, safeguard client data, ensure operational resiliency, and navigate a dynamic regulatory and political landscape.
When a law firm hires a new COO, the first 100 days are critical to establishing credibility, building trust, and laying the foundation for long-term success. We asked four sitting COOs at Am Law 100 firms to share advice for law firm chairs and managing partners on how to set a new COO up for success. All these COOs were highly complimentary of their chairs for a smooth introduction and orientation to their firms.
Their collective wisdom can be distilled into six key actions.
Signal Visible Support from Day One
Every COO we spoke with emphasized how important it is that chair and firm leadership visibly endorse the new hire—both publicly and privately.
Dave Boden, COO of Haynes Boone, described how his chairman’s strong support gave him immediate credibility among partners and allowed him to do his job effectively. Boden suggests that a chairman’s support should show up in firmwide announcements, an introduction at partners’ meetings, and ideally a personal message (video or in person) reinforcing the COO’s qualifications and the chair’s confidence.
Create a Structured, Thoughtful Orientation
Don’t leave onboarding to chance.
Victor Nuñez of Cooley described a multi-week orientation program that included office visits, participation in board meetings, and scheduled introductions to key partners and business professionals. That blueprint was developed jointly by HR and senior leadership to make sure no relationship was overlooked. Whether formalized or not, the early months should map out key meetings, topical briefings, and office visits.
Facilitate Relationship-Building Across the Firm
Speed matters in establishing trust.
Brian Gross of Morrison & Foerster emphasized that his earlier interviews across the firm gave him insight into the partnership’s mindset even before day one. For firms that ran a leaner search, replicate that exposure after the hire: identify the 20–30 partners whose support is critical and make sure the COO meets them early, ideally in person. As part of that, the chair can accompany the COO on initial office visits or roadshows to accelerate buy-in. It is equally important for a new COO to meet not only their direct reports, but also the team underneath their direct reports. As one COO commented, “It’s important to meet the people who are doing a lot of the hard work.”
Set Communication Rhythms and Clear Boundaries
Agreeing on communication protocols from the start is essential.
Weekly one-on-ones with the chair, informal check-ins, and periodic strategy dinners help keep the COO plugged into firm leadership. Equally important: clarifying decision-making authority and escalation protocols. For example, Rob Brown of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton made the point that a clear mutual understanding between the COO or Executive Director and the Chair/Managing Partner on where the Chair wants to be involved in joint decisions very much helps to build mutual trust and understanding. The absence of that clear framework can slow down critical decision-making and create organizational confusion.
Balance Patience with Momentum
Early listening is critical.
Several COOs described their first months as a “honeymoon period” spent observing, asking questions, and building informal influence. Boden, for instance, used that time to gather observations and perspectives from his chairman, laying the groundwork for future initiatives. That said, some COOs cautioned that waiting too long may not be ideal—early personnel moves, or other changes might be necessary. The key is to pace change carefully and communicate the rationale clearly to partners.
Include Coaching and Team Building
Many firms, especially those hiring a first-time COO or someone from outside the legal industry, find it beneficial to engage an experienced coach. A coach who has held a COO role within a law firm can help the new leader grasp the nuanced dynamics of firm operations and avoid common pitfalls.
In our work, we often pair coaching with a facilitated team-building session for the COO and their direct reports. Using Personalysis, a well-known personality-based assessment tool, we explore how each team member makes decisions, communicates, and contributes. From these results, we produce a team profile that helps everyone understand how to collaborate more effectively, providing the COO with early insights into leading their team. Direct reports frequently tell us this exercise helps them adapt more quickly and fosters early trust.
The Payoff
When onboarding is handled intentionally, the results speak for themselves: stronger alignment between leadership and partners, smoother decision-making, and a COO freed to focus on strategy rather than credibility-building. As one COO put it, “If you don’t have the partnerships, confidence, and solid channels of communication, you’re crippled from the start.”
For firms preparing to welcome a new COO, taking these six steps—visible support, structured orientation, relationship-building, clear communication, paced change, and coaching/team-building—can transform a promise-filled hire into a transformational leader.
The death of Robert Redford — beloved actor, philanthropist, and champion of independent film — brought tributes from around the world. None were more heartfelt than those from the Sundance film community, where Redford’s vision of founding the Sundance Film Festival in 1981 gave thousands of filmmakers and actors their first opportunity.
I have been fortunate enough to review films at Sundance for more than a decade, which has left me with a deep appreciation for Redford and the festival’s role in shaping independent cinema. Below are five of my favorite Sundance films that capture his legacy.
Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989) tells the story of a man (James Spader) whose habit of videotaping women talking about their lives disrupts the fragile marriage of a young couple (Andie MacDowell and Peter Gallagher). Its honest, sometimes uncomfortable take on intimacy and betrayal surprised Sundance audiences, won the Audience Award, and helped kick off a new wave of independent filmmaking. More than thirty years later, this low-budget, cerebral film still packs a punch and remains one of the defining titles that put the Sundance Film Festival on the map.
(Available on Amazon, Apple TV, or Fandango at Home.)
Searching for Sugar Man (2012) tells the story of 1970s singer-songwriter Rodriguez, who many considered the equal of Bob Dylan but who vanished from the music scene after recording just two albums. A bootlegged copy of one of his records made its way to South Africa, where he became a cult hero, selling more records than Elvis Presley. The film follows the search from South Africa to California and Detroit to uncover what really happened to him, with the final scenes famously shot on an iPhone after the production ran out of money — a testament to the power of storytelling over budget. This extraordinary documentary went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and remains one of Sundance’s most uplifting discoveries.
(Streaming on Amazon, Apple TV, or Google Play Movies.)
Financed by private donations, Rebirth (2011) followed five individuals impacted by the 9/11 attacks over a ten-year period as they grieved and rebuilt their lives. The film focused not on the event itself, but on how humans are hard-wired to heal, interweaving intimate stories with time-lapse footage of Ground Zero’s cleanup and rebuilding. I think of this remarkable film every September and wonder how the individuals are faring decades later. For many years, clips of this emotional film were screened at the 9/11 Memorial Museum.
(Available on Apple TV and Amazon Video.)
Blythe Danner delivered what may be her career-best performance in I’ll See You in My Dreams (2015), playing a widow navigating aging, grief, and a late-in-life romance with the handsome and dashing Sam Elliott. Written and directed by then-unknown Brett Haley, it’s an honest story about loss, resilience, and the unexpected ways love and friendship can return to your life. With a bigger studio marketing push, Danner might well have been an Oscar nominee. This is the film I most often recommend to friends — and they always thank me.
(Available on Netflix, Amazon Video, Fandango at Home, and Apple TV.)
The tender coming-of-age drama CODA (2021) follows Ruby (Emilia Jones), the only hearing member of a deaf family, as she serves as their interpreter while pursuing her dream of becoming a singer. One of the film’s most powerful moments shows the world through her parents’ eyes — able to see the applause when she sings on stage but not hear it. The music, filled with familiar oldies, gives the film much of its heart. Apple acquired CODA for a record $25 million, and it went on to become the first Sundance premiere to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Troy Kotsur also made history as the first deaf male actor to win an Academy Award.
(Available on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Movies, and Fandango at Home.)
There have been thousands of films that got their start at Sundance, but these five remain my personal favorites. They reflect the powerful, daring storytelling that Robert Redford championed, ensuring that his vision for independent film will live on.
Jane Howze is managing director of The Alexander Group, a national executive search firm. She has covered every Sundance Film Festival since 2011.
The days of questioning the importance of Artificial Intelligence are over. Staying competitive and ahead of the curve means delving into AI from both leadership and technological perspectives, and knowing where to start is crucial. From boutique law firms to AmLaw legacies, AI is transforming how leadership approaches all aspects of law firm operations.
Rethinking Leadership Roles
Larger firms such as Cooley and Milbank are AI pioneers, establishing internal workflows and protocols, while also serving their clients’ AI needs. Smaller and regional firms are also adapting, incorporating AI into their practice and adding leaders to the executive roster to implement and execute AI. And while technology is intrinsically tied to AI, staying competitive requires executive talent with a broader, more adaptive skill set – prompting firm leadership to ask the following:
Who should lead this transformation?
Should that person have a JD?
Where in the org chart do they belong—IT, strategy, operations?
Managing Director John Mann has his finger on the pulse of the fast-changing needs of boutique and regional firms, finding that AI leaders may not be who you think.
“What’s particularly interesting is that, more often than not, the person leading the AI function within a law firm comes from a legal background,” Mann said. “In my research and conversations, the consistent feedback is that it’s critical for AI leadership to have a legal background, typically a JD, or experience at another law firm. This isn’t about a Chief Information Officer simply implementing off-the-shelf AI tools. Law firms recognize that to remain competitive, especially midsized firms, they must strategically harness AI, because the larger firms are already doing so.”
Survey Says Yes to AI—But With Caution
A 2025 survey of more than 2,800 legal professionals by the Federal Bar Association tracked the changes in AI adoption by lawyers in firms of various sizes.
Respondents from firms with 51 or more lawyers reported a significant 39% adoption rate of generative AI. By contrast, firms with 50 or fewer lawyers had adoption rates at half that level, with approximately 20% indicating the implementation of legal-specific AI within their practices.
In the survey, respondents indicated that the bulk of AI usage falls into business operations, with 54% of legal professionals using AI to draft correspondence, 14% using it to analyze firm data and matters, and 47% expressing interest in AI tools that assist in obtaining insights from a firm’s financial data.
Thomson Reuters surveyed more than 2,200 legal professionals and C-level corporate executives regarding their acceptance and usage of AI and compiled the results in the 2024 Future of Professionals Report. Respondents have warmed to the technology, raising expectations for its use.
77% of respondents believe AI will have a high or transformational impact on their work by the next five years. That’s an increase of 10 percentage points over the 2023 report’s responses.
72% of legal professionals surveyed in the report view AI as a force for good in their profession.
Half of law firm respondents cite exploring and implementing AI as their highest priority. In addition, they believe AI can help address other priorities, such as enhancing customer satisfaction and improving operational efficiency.
Despite the growing AI implementation, Mann finds law firm leadership is staying vigilant and intentional with AI use, especially when attorney-client confidentiality is concerned.
“The AI landscape is still the Wild West,” Mann said. “I recently had a conversation with a managing partner of a 50-attorney firm, and he said they have restricted the use of AI tools for client matters because of the potential breach of attorney-client privilege. Bottom line? They implemented a policy restricting the use of AI in any client matters.”
New Technology, New Strategies
Firms are looking beyond the IT department for the strategic role, prioritizing an executive’s legal experience and deep understanding of technology to drive efficiency, reduce billing bottlenecks, and enhance client outcomes.
Whether a firm labels the role Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Data and AI Officer, or Director of Innovation, there are consistent requirements for each, including 10 or more years of experience in legal operations, professional services innovation, or technology consulting and a proven ability to lead cross-functional innovation or technology initiatives in a law firm or professional services environment.
Ultimately, AI and its presence within law firm structure and leadership are making their own rules, challenging norms and definitions at every turn.
“AI is coming up as its own function and is not tethered to any one functional area,” Mann said. “There’s the tech piece of course, but there’s also strategy and a need for understanding and expertise in the practice of law. The question many firms are asking is, ‘How can we operate more efficiently to drive greater revenue and profitability?’ And for most, the answer increasingly points to leveraging AI to get there.”
Managing Director John Mann wrote this blog post a week after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in the Houston area on Aug. 26, 2017.
Hurricane Harvey dumped a record-breaking 60 inches of rain across the area, prompting 17,000 rescues, flooding hundreds of thousands of homes, and displacing more than 30,000 people.
John’s story of community connectedness, loss, and resilience in the face of disaster is just as powerful and poignant today as it was in 2017. We share this story and John’s thoughtful action items as a remembrance of all who lost so much and those who saved so many, suffered, and persevered to rebuild and start again.
The rain started on Saturday, August 26th, and continued throughout the day. By late Saturday evening, the unrelenting torrential rains and their puddles quickly morphed into flooded streets in just a matter of minutes. By 5:00 am Sunday morning, the houses on my block in Bellaire, an inner-loop Houston neighborhood, began to flood, and I found myself helping several neighbors evacuate to our house.
We built our dream house this spring, a two-story New Orleans-style house. At the last minute, we decided to build it an extra 18 inches above the city requirement. Our neighborhood had flooded in prior years, but our lot had never flooded. At the time, I thought our decision may have been overkill, but it turned out to be home-saving.
With the help of a couple of neighbors, I used a kayak to rescue a 90-year-old neighbor whose daughter and first responders were unable to reach. She was by herself and unable to get out of bed as water filled her bedroom. It was a scary and surreal experience. By Sunday afternoon, the water had risen to within one foot of our front door. The water rose and eventually receded 24 hours later, though the rains would not stop for another 48 hours. After the water receded, we breathed a sigh of relief and began to take stock.
Our garage and cars flooded, and we lost power and plumbing for 36 hours, but thankfully, our house did not flood. Twenty-one neighbors sought refuge at our house on Sunday evening, all of whom had lost their houses and most everything in them. The mood was somber; we were all in a state of shock and disbelief. We gave up our sons’ rooms, and every other room in our house was filled with people on couches and air mattresses. Sadly, for unexplained reasons, no rescue boats or helicopters found their way to our street.
On Monday morning, we discovered that our house was one of the few in our neighborhood that did not flood. In the last week, my wife and I have been doing everything we can to help our neighbors begin the arduous process of rebuilding their homes. We, along with a cadre of volunteers, have removed furniture, sheetrock, insulation, and flooring.
After a home has flooded, it is essential to remove the sheetrock and flooring as soon as possible to prevent mold growth and allow the house to dry out. Our street, like so many others around Houston, is lined with huge debris piles. The rancid stench of mold is overwhelming. The cleanup alone will take weeks, if not months, and will serve as a poignant reminder of the catastrophic devastation.
I, like many others, donated money in years past when tragedies struck other areas of the country and world. I would text a donation, give money or supplies, attend a fundraiser, and feel good about contributing. However, I never understood how my donations were distributed or the exact impact my donation would have. Over the past week, I have received numerous inquiries from clients, friends, and family members who wanted to offer their assistance. I also learned what to do and not to do when offering to help:
1) Volunteer your time, not your religion or politics. Many of my neighbors and I went house-to-house to assist families with whatever they needed. We asked them if we could help and quickly got to work photographing and documenting destroyed furniture and belongings, as required by insurance companies, and removing furniture, sheetrock, and boxing salvageable belongings. We offered to wash clothes, towels, and linens, and with each house, we became more adept at identifying other opportunities to lighten the homeowner’s tremendous burden.
We did this as efficiently and quickly as possible, without regard for the family’s political beliefs, religious affiliation, or ethnicity. We just wanted to help our neighbors. Unfortunately, I noticed a few organizations that appeared to have ulterior motives of espousing their religious or political beliefs in exchange for their help. Others overthought it and wanted to establish command posts and interview families to “determine needs.”
The requirement of your time is simple and straightforward: show up and be willing to work right away. Ask, “Do you need a hand?” and quickly get to work.
2) Donate thoughtfully. As reported on CBS News, some donated items hinder recovery and are not necessary. Also, I learned that recoveries are fluid and dynamic, and requirements change daily.
In the first few days, housing, food, and materials to help remove water-soaked sheetrock and flooring were scarce and in high demand. Then the need moved to fans, dehumidifiers, boxes, and packing tape. One San Francisco friend and client did two things that touched me deeply. The Power of Business and Style CEO Anne Sagendorph sent a letter to her clients describing our plight. She followed that by sending a huge order of boxes for my neighbors to pack up their remaining belongings. Another business friend from across town donated a chair, a nightstand, and lamps she was no longer using. My neighbors will never meet this thoughtful friend, but they will have light and a place to sit in their temporary housing thanks to her.
Today’s needs are different. I am now trying to find animal shelters that will temporarily house cats and dogs as families transition to temporary housing (mostly apartments, many of which have a limit to the size and number of pets). Again, a client has jumped in and is trying to help our neighborhood. Bottom line: determine what is needed and when it is required. Be thoughtful and creative.
3) Houston visitor/volunteers –are you needed? Most shelters and organizations have multiple needs. If you are a doctor or pharmacist who wants to volunteer, there are plenty of opportunities to serve. On the other hand, if you just want to help, make sure you have a plan, a place to volunteer, and a place to stay.
Many flood victims, even if they are still in their houses, are too traumatized to want company, even if you are there to help. I had to tell an old college friend who wanted to travel to Houston to help that, with my neighbors using me as a fallback shelter, I couldn’t accommodate him.
If there is no specific assignment for you, determine if the money you would spend on flights and hotels would make a greater impact than your time. Many not-for-profits have up-to-the-minute wish lists on Amazon of items they need most. And in the final analysis, nothing works better for not-for-profits (and some displaced families) than cash.
4) Select organizations that make an immediate impact. I discovered that those who lost everything almost immediately needed shelter, food, and transportation. Some who lost their wallets or credit cards needed cash. Sadly, perhaps because of its enormous scale, there is no single nonprofit that has been able to adequately support Houston’s colossal needs. There seems to be disagreement about whether big organizations (think SPCA and Red Cross) are as effective as grassroots fundraising organizations, such as Houston Texans star player JJ Watt’s Hurricane Harvey Fundraiser and the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, which give 100 percent of the funds collected to hurricane victims. Those seeking a smaller, more transparent animal rescue group may wish to consider Friends for Life. Also, consider a direct gift of gift cards or cash.
Disaster recovery is a marathon, not a sprint. Hurricane Harvey will soon roll off America’s radar (pardon the pun), and life for some of us in Houston will soon return to normal. The rebuilding effort that lies ahead for many will be challenging and stressful. Donations will be required for months to come. Find your cause, or causes, within the disaster, and spend time researching to determine when, how, and what you can do to help.
Not-for-profit leaders are accustomed to doing more with less. Still, waves of economic uncertainty, coupled with the rapidly evolving AI landscape, are forcing even the most seasoned leaders to reevaluate and redefine past methodologies and strategies.
Today’s leaders recognize that the decisions they make will have a lasting impact on their organizations’ mission, funding, and strategy. Maximizing the relationship between a Chief Executive Officer and their board, implementing AI literacy, and sharpening fundraising focus are essential for the sustainability and growth of an organization.
Benefits of a Strong Board
The partnership between a CEO and their board is one of shared commitments and a well-crafted strategy. A CEO should be able to lean on their board and, at times, be prepared to hear difficult truths. Board members bear a responsibility to engage with the organization, its executive team, and other key stakeholders.
Organizations that invest in building effective boards often see more stable funding, stronger staff retention and morale, greater influence in their sector, and more substantial donor confidence.
Modern board governance is evolving as the demand for more strategic, diverse, and accountable board members increases. In practice, this translates to broader board representation in terms of age, experience, and diversity. Clearly defining board roles and term limits lays the foundation for continued growth.
“Nonprofits transform their trajectory when boards adopt some of the discipline and accountability models of the corporate world. When CEOs and boards align on clear roles and a shared strategy, they drive greater impact and long-term growth,” said John Mann, Managing Director, The Alexander Group.
Engaged Boards Elevate Fundraising
The top line for fundraising and development activities is always at the forefront of not-for-profit organizations. Cultivating a more engaged board is an effective way for nonprofits to enhance their fundraising efforts, and that starts with empowerment and clear expectations.
Start by setting clear expectations, providing training, and fostering a culture of accountability. A well-informed, mission-driven board can unlock new funding opportunities, leverage its networks, and serve as influential ambassadors for the organization. When donors feel connected and the board is fully invested, fundraising efforts become more strategic, sustainable, and successful.
Embracing AI
From predictive fundraising to automated grant reporting, AI is rapidly changing nonprofit operations. According to the 2024 Nonprofit Standards Benchmarking Survey, 82 percent of organizations have implemented AI technology. AI is quickly becoming a valuable tool in the not-for-profit sector, enhancing an organization’s ability to anticipate donor needs and recommend targeted actions.
Strategic CEOs understand the urgency of thoughtfully investing in AI across everything from software to leadership positions, such as Chief Innovation Officer. Smaller organizations are forming committees that may include board members to explore how to use AI synergistically with various functions.
Employing AI to do everything from the tedious to the time-consuming leaves staff open to connect in a more meaningful way with the organization’s donor base. Forward-looking not-for-profits are using AI-assisted donor segmentation, chatbots for volunteer engagement, and automated analytics for board reports, building AI literacy among their team members.
Digital fundraising solution OneCause works specifically with not-for-profits and found organizations are most successful when leaning into AI from a solid foundation of personal connectedness. In 2024, 75% of organizations hosting in-person events met or exceeded their fundraising goals, and 76% of those using hybrid models also achieved their targets.
Mission-Minded, Future Focused
It’s a challenging time for the modern non-profit CEO/Director, but within this sea change lies opportunities to serve and grow the organization’s mission.
The mission is the motivator.
“Every nonprofit begins with someone on a mission. To grow the organization, the mission must resonate with others, and someone must articulate the mission in such a compelling way that others embrace it and are willing to support it, not just with their hearts and their volunteer time but also with financial donations,” saidAmanda K. Brady, Chief Client Officer/Managing Director. “Whether it is the Founder, a CEO, or a development leader, someone must craft and evangelize a message that brings others into the community and keeps them engaged. It is an existential imperative. In today’s times, leaders must seek, embrace, and utilize innovative tools that build on the organization’s mission.”
