Why Most Firms Get AI Adoption Wrong
I sat down recently with Eric Sanchez of Maestro Strategic Partners on the Trial Lawyer View by Synergy podcast to talk about AI adoption in personal injury firms. Eric is a legal technologist who works with plaintiff firms on operations, technology implementation, and leadership. He has been in the legal tech space for years, and he sees more law firms from the inside than most of us will in a career.
The conversation went places I did not expect. And the takeaway I kept coming back to after we wrapped was this: most firms that struggle with AI do not have a technology problem. They have a process problem. They have a people problem. And until they address those first, the AI tools will not save them.
AI Is No Longer Optional
Eric was blunt about where we are. AI adoption in law firms is not a preference anymore. It is a requirement to compete. The speed of change in AI makes it different from every other technological shift we have seen. Eric pointed out that AI is advancing every six to seven months in ways that took other technologies years. If you have not started adopting it, you are falling further behind with each passing quarter.
He referenced firms like Sweet James that have been building AI into their operations for two years. They are operating on a different level than firms still debating whether to buy their first tool. And the gap between the two grows wider every month.
The consumer side of this matters too. Your clients are already using AI for everyday tasks. They are using it to find recipes, troubleshoot appliances, and plan trips. That normalizes it. Your staff use it at home whether you know it or not. So, the stigma around AI is fading at the ground level, which means the appetite for it inside your firm is higher than you think.
People, Process, Technology. In That Order.
Eric laid out a framework I think every firm leader needs to hear. There are three legs to success with AI: people, process, and technology. And the order matters.
Most firms go straight to the technology. They buy a tool. They roll it out. They wonder why nobody uses it. The reason is simple. You skipped the first two steps.
Start with process. Eric told me the number one problem he sees is that firms have not codified their own workflows. If you have six paralegals and each one orders medical records differently, you do not have one problem to solve with AI. You have six. Before you bring in any tool, figure out what your people are doing now, identify what works, and lock it down as the standard. Then bring in technology to improve that standard.
Next, address your people. Eric described four personas that exist in every firm. There is the visionary, usually the firm principal, who wants to grow and innovate. There is the champion who is excited about new tools. There is the blocker, often the tenured paralegal who resists change. And there is the middle-of-the-road person who wants to get their work done with as little friction as possible.
Each persona requires a different approach. The visionary sometimes needs to be reeled in. The champion needs to be grounded in practical concerns. The blocker needs to be managed carefully. And Eric made an important point here: people do not hate change. They hate change that does not benefit them. If your team understands how a new tool makes their work easier or more effective, they will get on board.
Start with the Pain Points Your Team Already Feels
Eric recommends creating work groups within your firm to identify pain points from the ground up. Not top down. When product selection happens at the top without input from the people doing the work, you get low adoption every time.
He gave a good example. Ask your paralegals to rate opening insurance claims on a scale of one to ten. He said he has never met a paralegal who rates that above a three. That is where you start. Find the tasks your team dreads, the ones that eat up time without adding value, and look for AI solutions there first.
Lien verification is another one. Medical record retrieval. Treatment follow-up calls. These are high-volume, low-satisfaction tasks where the right tool gives you immediate leverage. And when your staff has identified the pain point themselves, the buy-in is already there.
Eric also made a point I agree with fully. If you find a solution that handles eighty percent of the problem, that is a win. Lawyers tend to focus on the outliers, the edge cases where the tool falls short. But if you are solving the bulk of the workload, you are ahead of most firms.
You Need an AI Policy Before You Need an AI Tool
This was one of the most practical pieces of advice from the conversation. Before you buy anything, write an AI policy for your firm. Eric pointed out that if you have twenty people in your office, some of them are already using public AI tools for work. They are pasting case details into ChatGPT. They are uploading documents to free tools without understanding the privacy implications.
An AI policy does not have to be complicated. At minimum, it should cover what tools are approved for use, what information is off-limits for public AI platforms, and what protections need to be in place around personally identifiable information. That is a quick, low-cost way to create a baseline of protection for your firm.
There Is No Single AI Tool That Solves Everything
One of the more interesting parts of our conversation was about tech stacks. Eric was clear that a single all-in-one AI platform is not the answer for most firms. The reality is that different tools do different things well. You might need one tool for medical chronologies, a different one for case valuation, another for marketing, and yet another for telephony and client communication.
Eric thinks the market will split into two camps. Some firms will go all-in on a single platform that handles intake, case management, and AI together. Others will keep their existing case management system and build a specialized tech stack around it with best-in-class tools for each function.
Neither approach is wrong. But the choice depends on your firm, your workflows, and your tolerance for managing multiple systems. A firm that litigates five percent of its cases has different needs than a firm that litigates forty percent. A high-volume TV advertising firm has different pricing sensitivities than a boutique trial firm handling high-value cases.
Eric also raised an important concern about the economics of legal AI. We are seeing staggering valuations and massive investment into these companies. Investors expect a ten-times return. At some point, the math will not work. That is worth thinking about when you are choosing which platforms to build your practice around.
AI Should Complement Your Team, Not Replace Them
I have been through a personal injury case myself. It is intensely personal. There is no place for AI to replace the human touch in client-facing interactions, especially during the most vulnerable moments of a case.
Eric shared a story that made this concrete. He tested a voice AI intake agent by pretending to be a prospective client. When he said he had lost his arm, the AI responded by asking if he had sought treatment. It completely missed the weight of what he had said. That kind of response puts your firm at the back of the line for any client paying attention.
The right approach is to use AI to support your people, not to stand in for them. Eric described a better application: using AI to create personalized video check-ins for clients, based on the lawyer’s own voice and likeness, with a clear option to connect with a real person. That adds value without removing the human connection.
He was direct about the workforce implications too. If AI is going to reduce your headcount, be honest with your team about that. The moment you start making cuts without being upfront, your best people, the ones with options, will leave. They will not wait to find out if they are next. Transparency builds trust. And the people who stay and learn to work alongside AI will become more valuable than ever.
Agentic AI Is Not the Same as Automation
Eric drew an important distinction between basic automation and agentic AI. A lot of what firms call AI today is not AI at all. It is an if-then automation. Zapier zaps, workflow triggers, rules-based routing. Those are useful, but they are not intelligent.
Agentic AI is different. An AI agent recognizes an event, makes a determination on its own, and executes. Eric compared it to the difference between “lawyer” as a label and the specific kind of law you practice. Agentic AI is a broad category. Some agents research and compile information. Some make phone calls to schedule appointments. Some monitor metrics and reallocate marketing spend without being told.
The AI-enabled firm of the near future will have paralegals operating like piano players, with each key being a different agent. They will manage workflows by launching agents to handle discrete tasks. That requires a new level of skill and sophistication from your team, which is another reason the people side of this equation matters so much.
What the AI-Enabled Firm Looks Like
Eric sees consolidation ahead. Firms that did not adopt AI will not be able to compete for cases. They will be absorbed by firms that did. The firms at the top will not be using a single AI tool. They will have built specialized tech stacks with tools for every function, from intake to litigation to marketing to client communication.
Those firms will respond to new mass tort opportunities in hours, not days. They will have agents monitoring case metrics and adjusting strategies in real time. They will compete for talent differently because the people who know how to work with AI will be in high demand.
Eric put it plainly. It is almost malpractice not to be using technology at this point. Not because it is trendy. Because it is necessary to serve your clients at the level they deserve.
The Bottom Line
If you take one thing from this conversation, make it this. Do not start with the tool. Start with your process. Start with your people. Write an AI policy. Identify pain points from the ground up. Then, and only then, bring in technology that fits your firm, your culture, and your workflows.
The firms that get this right will have a meaningful advantage in the years ahead. The firms that skip the foundational work will spend money on tools that collect dust.
If you want to hear the full conversation with Eric Sanchez, check out the Trial Lawyer View podcast. And if you want to connect with Eric’s team at Maestro Strategic Partners, contact him at eric@mstratpartners.com.
🎧 Listen to the full podcast conversation on Trial Lawyer View here: https://triallawyerview.com/podcast/eric-sanchez/
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