Although today’s legal technology events, above all else, showcase the many ways AI is disrupting the industry, at least one speaker at ILTACON 2026 noted changes in another area.
As parents and educators are well aware, elementary school students can’t just come up with the right answer to a math problem anymore. In the AI age, they’re also graded on how well they document the process that got to the result.
Law firms face a similar dynamic, notes Donovan Bell, a CLOC board member and former head of global legal operations at Intel.
When law firms are explaining AI use to clients, their least effective response is to just list the tools they’re using at a high level. Instead, they need to show their work — and to do so in detail.
“I was fortunate to have a firm sit down and give me a presentation,” Bell says, recalling an outside counsel who detailed exactly how AI was involved in the full life of a matter.
The presentation demonstrated the value AI was providing as an enabler for the work, its effects on lowering costs, and how lawyers were using technology throughout the process to ensure the highest quality output.
“That really appealed to me,” he says. “It made me sit up, lean forward, and definitely say, ‘OK, I want to hear more, and definitely want to work with you.’”
Bell’s comments came on a Litera masterclass panel that went into detail on how law firms should — and should not — respond when clients ask about their use of artificial intelligence tools.
Still, detailing AI use to every client is a big ask, notes Litera GC Dennis Garcia, the discussion’s moderator.
The question has been coming up in RFP responses, security questionnaires, retainer agreements, and amendments to those agreements.
“It seems like a relatively straightforward question, which could be easy to answer,” he says. “And the reality is, it’s not so easy to answer, because you just can’t say, ‘Hey, we’re using these AI solutions or tools.’ You need to get deeper.”
From Cringe to Based
If a law firm wants to make clients run for the exits, shallow, formulaic responses are a good way to make that happen.
If the firm is promising change without a baseline to track the change, for example, or failing to demonstrate understanding of the company’s particular workflows, clients will cringe.
“I want to know: Do you understand the core of the challenge that we’re trying to meet?” Bell says.
Another red flag: leaving out the firm’s own technology professionals and featuring only lawyers when detailing the firm’s technology use to a client.
“We want to see the right capabilities within the firms now, to help them shape and use this technology,” notes Rahul Chhabra, a former legal operations professional at Meta, now the director of applied AI at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer.
Firms can instead win over their clients by getting into the weeds, sharing as many specifics and details as possible. This allows them to showcase how they are using AI and the strategic thinking behind its implementation.
The firm can detail things like how the proverbial “human in the loop” is participating in the work, how risk is being effectively managed, and areas where it might be appropriate for a partner to engage.
“It’s not just me saying, ‘Hey I see you’re using AI, so why isn’t the bill rate going down?’” Bell notes. “But it’s more so: ‘Here’s the life of the matter, and here’s the cost of that matter, and how not only am I able to optimize the cost, but also here’s where you’re effectively managing the risk.’”
Getting in the Weeds
So if firms want to keep their clients happy and remain competitive today, they need to communicate individualized reports on AI adoption to them all. But what does an effective report look like, and how can they best go about it?
“You just can’t give one standard answer to each of your clients regarding this question, right?” Garcia says. “You have to make it a tailored and bespoke answer that is responsive to their needs.”
These reports must lay out the strategic thinking behind the firm’s technology use and implementation — and do so in as much detail as possible, with as much specificity to the client as possible. They must document how the technology is bolstering the services they deliver, while also controlling expenditures.
It’s a process that Biglaw is still in the early stages of figuring out.
“I think it’s hard because a lot of us as law firms, we are not in the business of data,” Chhabra notes. “We are in the business of providing advice, and we are really good at that.”
Firms may struggle to report exactly what has changed through technology implementation, he says, because a lot of times they don’t have a fleshed out baseline to compare it to.
Chhabra notes how Litera Foundation supports a law firm’s efforts in meeting a challenging moment.
The system centralizes matter history, lawyer credentials, and client data into connected, searchable profiles that fuel faster, more credible pitches and proposals. It’s the type of support he needs to handle the volume and demands he’s facing.
“I think it’s really valuable to have tools like that, that connect all of your business services systems, and which can start giving you insights into a matter,” he says. “We as firms are now thinking through that and shaping that.”
Where Transparency Leads
As the panel neared its Q&A phase, Garcia asked the audience for a show of hands. The question: “Has anyone effectively measured return on AI investment?”
Almost no hands went up.
“Do you know who is responsible for determining whether AI is working?” drew a few more.
It’s a dynamic that has been well documented in recent studies.
For Chhabra, keeping up with the rapid pace of change is a key driver.
“Today, we don’t have all the answers of how it’s actually helping us get return on investment,” he says. “But if we do not learn these tools today while we’re trying to figure out the ROI answer, we are going to be left behind.”
And for law firms, many of the business benefits ultimately boil down to client service.
If firms can provide services to them more quickly and more effectively, Chhabra says, they can bill for this outcome. It’s a model that can go beyond value-based pricing to outcome-based pricing.
He gave the example of a company offering to pay a firm a $2 million bonus on top of their fee if they can close a litigation matter within six months.
If it’s a product company and it’s building a new supply chain that’s being held up by the litigation, the value for the client could be $100 million — and they’d be willing to share 5% of that money.
To bring about these arrangements, transparency and detail in client communications are essential, he notes. What is the thinking behind the strategy? What are the important issues? What is the outcome you really want?
“So there’s a lot of that,” Chhabra says. “Those conversations when you’re transparent with your clients, when you’re having the real conversations with them.”
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