Legal Ops in the Age of AI: A Mid-Year Reflection
As I jetted home from CLOC nearly two months ago, I fully intended to post a retrospective within the week. Instead… well, this is my first post since CLOC.
After nearly 18 years in the Legal Ops space, I can honestly say I’ve never seen a surge like this. The tsunami in generative AI innovation and legal tech investment has been unlike anything before. Just last week, Legal Technology Hub updated its GenAI Legal Tech Map for June 2025 — the list has grown by 60% in just four months!
At HEARST, our small but mighty team has roughly 0.75 FTE dedicated to tracking and vetting this deluge — while simultaneously delivering our standard portfolio of ~36 new projects per year. And yet, like many of you, we’re being pushed to go faster, fail faster, and build MVPs faster.
Sometimes, the only option is to keep your head down and do the work. I’m grateful that we’ve had legal ops peers, LTH, and the LTF, among others, not to discount the support of an enterprise contract with OpenAI (Hello Deep Research) to help.
The Payoff: Progress That Matters
When you put in the work, you start to see results. We’re not just evaluating tools — we’re building expertise. In the IDC Generative AI in Legal 2024 (commissioned by Relativity), the highest adoption rate across any of the 12 legal AI use cases was 19%. By contrast, HEARST OGC has fully or selectively deployed solutions across 67% of those same use cases. And we’ve got six additional use cases planned for Q3–Q4 of this year.
We’ve also sharpened our ability to cut through the hype. Externally, we now recognize what’s table stakes — summaries, timelines, OCR, translations, prompt-based extractions — and where true differentiation lies. Internally, starting in Q3, we’ll be partnering with our Enterprise GenAI team to co-develop MVPs more quickly and cost-effectively. And if a need arises to go back to the market, we’ll be equipped with laser-focused business requirements.
Looking Ahead
We’re not slowing down — and neither is the market. But we’re moving smarter, not just faster.
Carpe diem, Legal Ops community. Let’s build wisely.
👉 How is your team approaching GenAI in legal? What’s working, what’s not, and what are you watching closely for the second half of 2025? I’d love to compare notes. Let’s keep the conversation going.