AI in Practice: How We’re Evolving Our Legal Services
Built in, not bolted on. BT embeds AI into how we practice law and deliver client work.
AI is not a standalone service or separate initiative at Barnes & Thornburg. It’s a practical capability embedded directly into how we practice law.
We deploy AI where it improves specific components of legal delivery — document review, analysis, drafting, and information synthesis — and we measure the results. The objective is not to adopt technology for its own sake, but to make lawyers more formidable and enhance client outcomes.
Our AI-Enabled Solutions in Action
Innovation Is Built Into Our Core
Our ability to integrate AI effectively is grounded in a decade-long investment in legal operations — the core capability that makes AI adoption real rather than theoretical.
We built a cross-functional Legal Operations capability long before AI entered the mainstream conversation — including professionals with direct in-house experience who work alongside lawyers and client teams on workflow, pricing, and operational challenges.
As a result, our conversations about AI start with real operational problems, not abstract technology discussions. New tools are introduced collaboratively — with clients, not at them — which leads to faster adoption and more practical use inside real workflows.
Where AI Improves Legal Work
Our approach centers on augmenting defined parts of legal work — not replacing attorney judgment. The highest-value applications tend to be practical and repeatable:
- Contract portfolio and risk analysis across large agreement sets
- First-level agreement review and drafting acceleration
- Discovery response preparation
- Regulatory and technical material distilled into client-ready summaries
- Legal research and citation verification
- Document review during transactions and due diligence
The result is AI-enhanced legal work that stays focused on what matters, without the overhead that pushes timelines and costs to the edge.
Governance That Enables Trust
Responsible governance is essential to deploying AI in legal practice. Barnes & Thornburg maintains clear policies, vetted tools, defined accountability, and strong security standards that allow these technologies to be used confidently in high stakes matters.
This governance framework enables adoption rather than limiting it. Strong governance keeps client confidentiality and accountability at the core of every AI deployment and supports AI usage that scales across matters, practices and client relationships.
AI Practice Champions
Across Barnes & Thornburg, 40 attorneys now serve as dedicated AI Practice Champions, working within their practices to advance how AI is used in the delivery of legal services to clients. The AI Practice Champions span nine practice areas and 36 focus areas, including Corporate, Litigation, Restructuring & Bankruptcy, Healthcare, Government Services & Finance, Real Estate, Environmental, Intellectual Property, and Labor & Employment.