While “intrapreneur” isn’t a proper job title, finding individuals who can enable ongoing change has turn into a strategic goal in law firms.
Such intrapreneurs often are likely to take up a brand new idea from scratch; gain support throughout the company; and impact each practical approaches to completing tasks and organizational mindsets. US law firms particularly have fun revenue generators, however the work of those innovators behind the scenes is increasingly seen as crucial to the corporate's overall success.
With this in mind, the jury searched for impact and leadership within the Intrapreneur Award category of the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards. Six strong candidates duly impressed with efforts starting from groundbreaking technological breakthroughs deployed inside their corporations to changing culture amongst colleagues – or a mixture of each.
Ultimately, the judges felt Dechert's Suzanne Turner stood out probably the most. Her early vision and impact of constructing pro bono work an integral and planned a part of law firms has continued to evolve. Not only are pro bono hours now routine in lots of law firms, however the scope of such programs is usually managed as a part of a world commitment.
Additionally, Turner strives for constant innovation – a recent example is using generative artificial intelligence to enhance efficiency in pro bono efforts.
WINNER: Suzanne Turner
Partner, Dechert
Suzanne Turner leads Dechert's pro bono practice. Under her leadership, Dechert was one in every of the primary law firms within the United States to require minimum working hours for fee earners. Last 12 months the firm worked 105,000 hours on greater than 1,700 matters. Before joining the firm's Washington DC office in 2006, Turner worked for Dechert in London, where she became its first international pro bono partner. Its mission was to professionalize the practice and develop a world infrastructure to guide the firm's efforts in the sector.
Turner became a professional bono pioneer in 1988 when, as a third-year associate at Ballard Spahr in Philadelphia, she convinced the firm to support her in a dedicated pro bono role.
Recent work includes the appliance of generative artificial intelligence to review potential miscarriages of justice as a part of Dechert's collaboration with the Innocence Project.
Alma assay
Chief Innovation and Value Officer, Crowell & Moring
Alma Asay joined Crowell & Moring in 2021 as the primary member of the innovation team, which has now grown to nine people. Her focus was on developing technology to help lawyers with client matters. So she began making a central platform to simply store and search the firm's data.
Asay led the event of the corporate's generative artificial intelligence platform, CrowellAI, which creates alerts on legal risks affecting clients' specific industries. Employees also can use it to consolidate cases and speed up other time-consuming tasks. The search systems are intended to support lawyers who are usually not aware of making “prompt” queries in chatbots. So far, around 45 percent of corporations have been trained in methods to use the tool.
After working as a litigator, she developed a project management system, Allegory, which was sold to legal tech company Integreon in 2017.
Byong Kim
Senior Director, Technology Innovations, Seyfarth Shaw
Since joining the firm in 2013, Byong Kim has developed technology tools for lawyers and their clients. In 2024, he accomplished a 10-year project to consolidate the systems that clients use to access details about their affairs right into a cloud-based platform, Seyfarth Link.
Kim also launched the corporate's AI portal to support contract evaluation and e-discovery and supply one-stop technology training and academic resources. Since its launch to almost 2,000 employees in March, the portal has averaged about 1,100 visits per thirty days. One of its tools, a document query chatbot, has handled 5,000 interactions since its launch.
His first job was as a programmer for IT consultants, but Kim also holds a level from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. He has led the corporate's technology team since 2016; In 2019 the team was renamed Seyfarth Labs.
Lisa May Haynes
Director of Technology Innovation, Ballard Spahr
Lisa Mayo Haynes was promoted to director of technology innovation this 12 months after 34 years as director of information and analytics. She helped lay the inspiration for Ballard Spahr's adoption of technology and the event of facilities to centralize corporate data.
Led by Mayo Haynes, the Client Value and Innovation team works with the firm's attorneys and clients to develop a variety of user-friendly technology applications tailored to their needs that don’t require complex programming skills.
Examples include: process tracking and regulatory tracking on issues akin to artificial intelligence and the use and disposal of hazardous chemicals utilized in the manufacture of consumer products; a chatbot that could be integrated into existing applications to create summaries and reply to questions; and a “Know-Your-Client” tool that mixes third-party information with the firm’s data warehouse to enable attorneys to evaluate their clients’ legal needs.
Jackie Park
Co-managing partner within the USA, DLA Piper
Jackie Park was promoted to her current position with the corporate in 2020. Since then, it has focused on worker training and development amid the workforce disruption brought on by the pandemic and the resulting competition for skills. In reviewing the normal training system, she found that the worth of the mentoring program was too often linked to luck: some mentors took the time to support employees, but others expected them to easily do menial tasks – and a few left the corporate.
Park replaced the mentoring program with a five-month training program for brand spanking new employees that emphasizes legal, interpersonal and technological skills. It wants to make sure staff in any respect levels receive support and has introduced mandatory training for lawyers to achieve the talents required for partnership. In addition, she has improved the support, guidance and feedback provided to lawyers during their first years as partners.
Janet Sullivan
Global Head of Practice Technology, White & Case
Janet Sullivan played a critical role on the corporate's innovation committee in responding to generative AI over the past two years. Under her leadership, the corporate has made significant investments in systems that leverage technology while protecting customer privacy. For example, the corporate has developed its own privately licensed generative AI software on its encrypted network. This gives customers peace of mind that their data won’t be accessible to 3rd parties, used to coach other external AI services, or mixed with other customers' information. For example, the corporate used this technique to create customized non-disclosure agreements for a personal equity client.
White & Case also uses common public AI software for administrative tasks. To drive adoption of latest technologies throughout the company, Sullivan led a project that collected feedback from a whole lot of consumers to discover areas for improvement.
