Adoption Over Hype: Lawyers, GenAI, and the Future – with Beverly Rich
- cosmonauts
- May 13
- 4 min read
Updated: May 14
We had the opportunity to sit down with Beverly Rich, Partner at Messner Reeves LLP, to discuss the evolving role of technology in the legal profession. With a rich background in private practice dating back to 2009—at firms including Waters & Kraus LLP, Gilbert & Stern LLP, and most recently serving as Practice Innovation Counsel at Ogletree Deakins—Beverly brings a sharp, strategic perspective to the conversation around legal tech.
This June, Beverly will take the stage at Legal Innovators California, joining a Day 1 panel discussion on "Driving Profitability With GenAI", where she'll explore how law firms are implementing this technology in innovative ways and uncover the measurable results for their employees and clients.
Don’t miss the chance to meet Beverly Rich and other leading legal tech experts at Legal Innovators California this June.
In the meantime, enjoy our full interview below.
How do you see the role of law firms evolving in response to the rapid technological changes in the legal industry?
Law firms' most valuable resource is their human capital. Law firms of all sizes should equip their employees with the ability to use genAI and other new technologies as a complement to their work. I see these tech advances as an opportunity for law firms and the legal industry to adapt to the changing professional services industry, writ large. As routine work is increasingly automated, lawyers have the ability and opportunity to do more complex legal work and embrace an expanded role as trusted strategic advisors to clients. I am optimistic about the ability of law firms to leverage their existing capabilities to adapt to the changing industry landscape.
How do you think technology is impacting the career paths of lawyers, particularly with the rise of automation?
I teach a course at USC Gould on genAI and law, and it's incredible to hear from students about their knowledge of technology and genAI in legal. The next generation of lawyers thinks about how to work more efficiently and effectively, and how to use tech to disrupt the legal status quo and provide quality legal services to more people. This past year, over half of the final projects focused on using technology to improve access to legal services. I'm encouraged by attorneys who are eager to educate themselves about genAI and technology more broadly -- not so that they are experts, per se, but so that they can successfully leverage technology to enhance what they are experts in: their legal practice.
What advice would you give to law firms that are just beginning to explore legal tech?
Don't rush! There's a ton of hype around legal tech and genAI, and it's easy to get swept up in it. Start by learning about the landscape including the underlying technology, products in the market, and new developments, then determine what specific problem(s) you want to solve. Talk to counterparts at other firms. Assess your firm’s capabilities: do you have developers in house? Do you want a bespoke product? Will an off-the-shelf solution do? What makes the most sense given your resources and capabilities? Talk to your IT group to ensure that systems and infosec are compatible with the tech, and talk about deployment. Identify key users, confirm that their workflows will benefit, then do a pilot to see if there is usage, and if the tech is any good. If all this checks out, license or deploy the product/tech. Then follow up to ensure folks are using it by doing trainings, meetings, surveys, etc. Rinse and repeat!
How are innovation teams driving the adoption of emerging tools such as GenAI?
Innovation teams at law firms are growing, and many are functioning like small start-ups within the larger law firm business function. Many innovation teams have a mix of product managers, developers, project managers, and strategists/counsel, all working collaboratively to develop, license, deploy, promote, and market genAI tools at the firm and for the firm's clients. In my experience, the shared value that ‘adoption = sustained use’ guided our work. It's easy to buy firm-wide Harvey licenses and claim that you have adopted genAI. However, the real work comes over time -- two, four, six months down the line -- in continuing to add users, investigating new use cases, and encouraging use. The innovation team should innovate for the firm and in their own work as well. There’s no magic recipe to get all lawyers to use genAI immediately and consistently, so innovation teams must continue to test and hone strategies to promote use.
What are the key strategies for successfully implementing a legal tech product rollout, and how can you effectively measure its tangible benefits?
Based on my experience, successfully implementing and rolling out a legal tech product is a multi-step process that requires advance planning and collaboration. It's critical to ensure that key stakeholders -- attorneys, IT, KM, Research, and the innovation team, for example -- align in terms of the expected outcomes and goals for the product's implementation. At the early stages of planning, ask the hard questions of the end users, such as: how long does this task take you now? What are the small steps (‘micro-tasks’) you take to complete this task? Who is involved? What sheets, forms, tech, etc. do you use? These answers will allow for a better approximation of the product’s ROI after implementation. By measuring changes to the task in terms of the composition of 'micro-tasks’ that comprise it, and, of course, in terms of time saved post-implementation, a rough ROI calculation emerges.
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