After Legalweek 2025, I reached out to people I met with for their conference observations. Here is part three of crowdsourced Legalweek 2025 observations!

FYI, I’m publishing their crowdsourced Legalweek 2025 observations in mostly the order they provided them to me and splitting them over three posts (here’s part one and part two). Note: some observations are split into multiple paragraphs, so only the last paragraph will show attribution.

This year’s LegalWeek felt very alive with curiosity and an appetite for innovation. Enterprise legal seems to have a renewed mission to make processes more efficient and reduce costs, making them very open to reimagining the way things have always been done. Law firms and service providers are embracing new technology at an exciting pace, and we saw a lot of interest in our solutions for hyperlinked files in eDiscovery from every customer segment. Overall, it was a great show, and we are looking forward to a new venue next year! Brandon D’Agostino, Vice President of Product, Cloudficient

Legalweek remains the best legal conference to see a wide array of tech and perhaps even more important, have face-to-face meetings with your most important clients and partners.  No other event out there in the legal world consistently brings this many folks together in a relevant and meaningful way. This year, we saw AI move from a conceptual topic to actual application. While AI has been all the hype for the last few years, this is the first time we have seen practical application with tools and tech being used on real projects with real impacts and ramifications. Brandon Hollinder, Esq., VP, eDiscovery and Cyber Solutions, Epiq

This year’s Legalweek offered a strong focus on how legal and compliance teams can drive greater efficiency, reduce costs, and harness AI to transform the industry. One key takeaway: real-time visibility and “pristine data” across the enterprise are essential to making AI models effective. That’s where X1’s powerful micro-indexing capabilities come in. X1 Enterprise showcased how its in-place data search, analysis, and collection solution for M365, cloud data sources, and globally distributed endpoints enables organizations to not only implement a much faster and lower cost eDiscovery process, but also leverage that same micro-indexing of data in-place to operationalize AI-driven workflows — and how by leveraging these capabilities, legal eDiscovery and GRC teams can significantly reduce costs and risk, turning AI’s promise into a practical, scalable reality. Larry Gill, CEO, X1

For the first time in two years, “this is a specific context where our AI can help you right now with little to no risk” overtook “AI will soon conquer your entire workflow — all hail SkyNet!” in vendor pitches. A small rhetorical shift to be sure, but it’s the difference between embracing specific task accelerators and vaguely turning bet-the-company work over to all-purpose Mansplaining As A Service bots, so I suspect we’ll see the industry as a whole respond better to AI adoption if vendors lean more on these grounded use cases. Joe Patrice, Senior Editor, Above the Law

Every year Relativity has hundreds of customer meetings during LegalWeek. It’s a tremendous concentration of customer feedback for Relativity. It is clear from those meetings that using generative AI is not IF but WHEN! There seems to be agreement that it will help make eDiscovery better. However, each time someone wants to use generative AI, it requires an individual evaluation, proposal, sale, choice, and/or deal. That creates friction and slows adoption. The sooner we can get to its an accepted and perhaps expected technology when used responsibly the better it will be for all of us. Chris Haley, VP, Practice Empowerment, Relativity

The variety and costs of use case-specific AI products are a challenge to building full-stack AI solutions in-house. Kevin Brzozowski, Director of Business Development, Level Legal

It was interesting to see the shift in perceptions and approaches to AI at Legalweek this year compared to last. Last year, most firms were in the early stages of exploring AI, and it was still a novelty for many. This year, it’s clear that firms have moved beyond adopting AI just for the sake of having AI – discussions are more strategic now, focused on practical applications that drive value. This aligns with Opus 2’s approach to AI, developing it to further enhance our award-winning case management platform, enabling law firms to do their work more intelligently and deliver better client outcomes. Beau Wysong, SVP of Global Marketing, Opus 2

Legalweek 2025 brought the buzz—but it was in the quieter corners where some real magic happened. The Operation Safe Spaces session on Monday may not have been a packed house, but it delivered one of the most impactful conversations of the week. Several attendees said it should have been the keynote for this Legalweek—and honestly, they’re not wrong. The judicial roundtable? A full house and full of insight. When judges break down AI, ethics, and the chaos of data with that much clarity, you leave both enlightened and slightly intimidated (in the best way). Add in a wave of exciting software launches shaking up the legal tech space, and a packed ACEDS reception that perfectly set the tone for a night of gowns, tuxes, and generosity at the eDiscovery Charity Gala—and yeah, Legalweek 2025 delivered. Maribel Rivera, VP, Strategy and Client Engagement at ACEDS

We’re seeing an appetite for attorneys to try GenAI tools on their own data so they can be more confident in the results. While some firms are adopting a wait-and-see approach, others see GenAI doc review as a differentiator and profit center and are looking to operationalize it with repeatable and reliable workflows. Anush Emelianova, Senior Product Manager, DISCO

Legalweek 2025 was loud with AI talk, but the quiet operators turning hype into repeatable workflows were the ones to watch. The conversation is shifting — from shiny tools to scalable outcomes. And with the Hilton’s swan song behind us, it’s clear: the future of eDiscovery won’t be waiting in the lobby. Matt Rosenthal, Senior Vice President, Sales, Cimplifi

Many corporate legal leaders are waiting to see real value from AI in litigation. They believe that the courts need to offer guidance for the acceptance of AI in the process, much like TAR 2.0. Steven Vandemark, Director of Business Development, Level Legal

Conference-goers repeatedly shared that they felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of vendors whose value propositions sounded very similar – i.e. an AI legal assistant. We had several folks stop by because our messaging was specific – our tagline was “AI that doesn’t give partners a heart attack” and we focused on our hyperlinked citations after every sentence in our litigation drafting tools in Word. Security and user training were the other themes that seemed on everyone’s brain as we move into the next phase of legaltech adoption in Legal. Jacqueline Schafer, Founder and CEO, Clearbrief.ai

Legalweek 2025 showed us that legal is no longer the industry that bucks the curb of technological advancement. Generative AI in all its forms is now amongst us and challenges every traditional workflow that we’ve come to know. The ride ahead may be bumpy, but we will be a better community and industry because of it. Irfan Shuttari, Director of Product Management, Arctera

We may be over two years into the Generative AI Revolution, but its impact on the law continues, and Legalweek 2025 was an excellent indicator.  Sessions on AI and the law had standing room only crowds—even if they paled in comparison to Rob Lowe. AI has helped many legal teams revolutionize their practices, but sadly, legal teams continue to make more errors in their use of AI, creating more case law, ethics rules, and teaching moments. David Horrigan, Discovery Counsel and Legal Education Director, Relativity

Thanks to all who crowdsourced Legalweek 2025 observations for me – you saved me writing three posts this week! 😀

So, what do you think? Did you attend Legalweek 2025? If so, feel free to comment with your own observations below! And please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.