Inspiring and enabling Copilot adoption for boutique law firm

Our customer, a boutique law firm specialising in intellectual property and media law, recognised the need to modernise its internal workflows and embrace AI-driven productivity tools. With a growing volume of client work and increasing complexity in legal documentation, the firm sought to:

• Reduce time spent on repetitive tasks such as contract drafting, client onboarding, and litigation reporting
• Improve internal collaboration and knowledge sharing across teams
• Explore the potential of generative AI to support legal research, summarisation, and document automation
• Ensure any AI adoption met strict confidentiality and compliance standards, particularly around client data segregation and document access

The firm’s leadership was clear: AI tools like Microsoft Copilot must not only save time but also enhance the quality of legal outputs and free up lawyers to focus on high-value client work.

Working with the customer’s Microsoft MSP, Betterworking designed and delivered a structured Microsoft 365 Copilot Getting Started programme, tailored to the firm’s legal workflows and compliance needs. The engagement followed Microsoft’s recommended adoption framework, with a strong emphasis on training, technical readiness, and scenario-based experimentation.

1. Vision & Value Workshop

The programme began with a strategic workshop to identify high-impact use cases. These included:

• Automating client onboarding via SharePoint and CRM integration
• Summarising litigation deadlines and trademark reporting
• Drafting and reviewing contracts using Copilot in Word
• Exploring agent-based automation for due diligence and invoice processing

2. Technical & Data Readiness

Working with the customer’s MSP, the team conducted optimisation assessments and reviewed SharePoint architecture to ensure secure and compliant access to client data. Special attention was given to:

• Avoiding cross-client data contamination
• Managing OneDrive vs SharePoint access boundaries
• Preparing for agent deployment with scoped data sources

3. User Enablement & Training

An onboarding session via Teams introduced staff to Copilot fundamentals, prompting techniques, and application-specific use (Word, Outlook, Teams, Excel). The training was tailored to legal professionals, focusing on:

• Prompt engineering for legal drafting
• Using Copilot Chat for research and summarisation
• Creating structured outputs like tables and bullet-point summaries

4. Pilot Deployment & Feedback Loop

Early adopters were onboarded and encouraged to experiment. Feedback was gathered via surveys in MS Forms and team meetings. A Copilot channel was created in Teams to share prompts, success stories, and challenges.

5. Agent Exploration

The firm started to explore more sophisticated use cases leveraging Copilot Studio to build custom agents, including:

• A trademark pricing agent using FX rates and jurisdictional rules
• A contract drafting agent with embedded risk analysis logic
• A SharePoint agent scoped to specific client folders for secure summarisation

The Copilot Getting Started programme delivered tangible benefits across the firm, with strong engagement from partners, associates, and trainees.

Productivity Gains: Lawyers reported saving 30–60 minutes per day using Copilot for:

• Drafting templated emails and engagement letters
• Summarising long email chains and meeting transcripts
• Reformatting contracts and generating client-ready documents

Improved Collaboration: The firm established a culture of prompt sharing and experimentation. Weekly team meetings included Copilot showcases, and a “Prompt of the Week” initiative was launched to encourage peer learning.

Enhanced Legal Research: Copilot Researcher agent was widely adopted for legal queries, legislation summaries, and SWOT analyses. Staff praised its ability to surface citations and reduce time spent on manual research.

Strategic Agent Development: Opportunities and use cases surfaced for proprietary agents to support core legal processes, including:

• Client onboarding automation
• Invoice generation and CRM integration
• Contract risk profiling and clause extraction

Strong Foundation for Scale: With technical readiness complete and user confidence growing, the firm is now planning to expand Copilot usage to more advanced workflows, including litigation support and document conversion.