An internal, AI-enabled law firm called LegalEdge gives this corporate legal team an edge on how AI is applied to legal work.

According to Alexander Dumont of Project Counsel Media (AT&T has created it’s own “in-house law firm” to test its new AI tools, and bring eDiscovery and other functions in-house, available here), AT&T is fundamentally rethinking the structure of corporate legal services through the creation of an internal, AI-enabled law firm called “LegalEdge.” According to Dumont, LegalEdge isn’t simply a legal operations initiative or technology pilot: it’s designed as a fully integrated in-house legal delivery model intended to change how legal work is performed at scale.

LegalEdge operates as a “technology-first” center of expertise inside AT&T’s legal department. Rather than relying primarily on outside counsel or large-scale contract attorney staffing models, AT&T is building an internal team of attorneys and legal professionals who combine legal judgment with generative AI and advanced legal technology tools. The stated objective is to deliver legal services “faster, higher-quality, and more cost-effective” while preparing attorneys for what AT&T views as the future of AI-enabled legal practice.

A major focus of the discussion centers on eDiscovery and litigation workflows. LegalEdge is intended to bring more substantive legal work in-house, including litigation support, investigations, regulatory matters, document review, legal research, drafting, and eDiscovery-related workflows that historically have been outsourced to law firms and service providers. According to the article, AT&T views these workstreams as particularly well suited for structured AI-assisted processes because they often involve large data volumes, repeatable workflows, and significant cost pressure. Couldn’t agree more.

Since LegalEdge launched in mid-January, it has taken on nearly all the company’s legal research and eDiscovery. On some legal matters, it already performs 20% to 25% of the work that had been almost entirely outsourced to law firms and legal tech providers, and its use cases keep growing.

Dumont quotes Susan McGahan, assistant vice president and senior legal counsel for AT&T Corp., who said AT&T has found “thousands of use cases for artificial intelligence models in our intellectual property work, both in-house and for outside counsel”. She said the company is also ensuring that outside counsel working with the company will use similar AI tools: “If you are not on the AI train, you have got to get on it, or lose us a client. You can’t be using your paralegals as much as you did before”.

Strong words.

So far, 30 people work at LegalEdge. Unlike the rest of AT&T’s legal department, they work remotely and clock billable hours – not for payment, but to allow the company to measure the effectiveness of the AI. AT&T aims to use the team as an incubator for AI adoption across the department, with LegalEdge poised to address challenges from slower adoption of the tools to difficulty measuring the return on investment in them.

LegalEdge gives this corporate legal team an edge on how AI is applied to legal work. I suspect it’s giving outside providers a few nightmares too, just sayin’. 🤣

The story about AT&T is only part of Dumont’s article, there is more, including a declaration that the Association of Corporate Counsel conference on legal operations is “quickly becoming the legal tech event to attend, over that old war horse Legalweek”. Wow!

So, what do you think? Do you think AT&T’s model will become a trend? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image created using DALL-E 3, using the term “corporate office full of robot lawyers all wearing suits”.

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.