The Business Challenge
As a global law firm — and the largest in the UK — our client represents clients across 32 major financial centers across the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In order to continuously serve its clients, the firm turns to cutting-edge technology. Its challenge was the need for a more efficient and scalable solution that would empower its team members to reduce time spent reading complex legal documents, writing briefs, summarizing meetings and conducting other time-consuming tasks.
In order to meet the client’s needs, the solution HCLTech built needed to:
- Quickly and accurately summarize complex data sources, including meetings and legal documents
- Provide live transcripts for non-native English colleagues and staff with accessibility needs
- Improve content generation, including drafts, contracts, clauses and legal arguments, without compromising quality
- Enhance innovation and collaboration, such as scenario modeling and new legal opportunities
The AI Transformation
HCLTech developed a branded solution for the law firm built on the Microsoft Azure OpenAI platform, leveraging a range of Microsoft applications, including Teams. Azure AI Cloud Services — including Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search and Translator Services — were utilized to onboard internal data and prepare for AI/machine learning innovation. Visualizations and dashboards are powered and monitored by Power BI. Azure Cloud Scale Analytics and Data Visualization Services implemented stretched across Azure Databricks, Azure Data Factory, ADLS Gen 2/Blob Storage, Azure Database, PostGre, SQL and LogAnalytics.
The client’s platform collects and analyzes data from across other Microsoft applications, including Copilot and Viva Suite, to automate and improve tasks for both employees and clients. The data is securely stored, processed and managed in Microsoft Azure OpenAI.
The client has established AI responsibility standards that the solution needs to adhere to — across integrity, confidentiality, privacy, responsibility, security and open engagement. To meet each of these standards, the solution is integrated with Microsoft Azure’s secure, private and scalable infrastructure and emphasizes encryption, authentication, authorization and auditing. Any legal output generated by the AI system is validated by a relevant lawyer and identified as AI, aligning with international best practices and prioritizing transparency, accountability, fairness and privacy.
This solution was also showcased and validated as part of the AI/machine learning on Azure specialization audit review process, alongside Microsoft Responsible AI assessment.
The Business Results
Early results are showing significant impacts:
Saved approximately 5,000 hours in reviewing and correcting time-recording narrative
Cut time spent generating documents by 2,000 hours
Reduced due diligence 40%-50%
As a thought leader and digital innovator in the Microsoft Early Adoption Program, the law firm is one of the first global organizations to deploy both Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Viva Suite at scale across its entire workforce, leading to:
Time savings
Cost savings
Increased efficiencyThe solution is one of the first private and secured AI tools for a global law firm. It was deployed last year after extensive testing with over 1,800 users to ensure that rollout was smooth and to minimize interruptions. Since implementation, the system has augmented and enhanced employees’ day-to-day work through Microsoft Translator’s cognitive translations, Teams Premium’s intelligent recap and more.
On top of significantly reducing the time it takes to generate documents and review time-recording narratives, generating first drafts of basic agreements and contracts has been reduced from two hours to just a few minutes. By accurately answering questions related to custom documents and surfacing the right references during response validation, the solution is expected to reduce due diligence between 40% and 50%.
With manual tasks now automated, lawyers and staff are freed up for more impactful work and increasing productivity. By more effectively allocating its resources, the client is realizing increased revenue and profitability — empowering the firm to take on more complex and high-value cases.
