Expert Analysis

• The GC's 1st 90 Days: How To Build Trust With The CEO

  During the early days in the general counsel role, establishing a CEO relationship that holds under pressure is dependent on earning access, communicating in business terms and advising candidly — all before a crisis arises, says Chaka Patterson, former general counsel at Adtalem Global Education.

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  Biz Development Tip Of The Month: Harness Client Trust

  Clients stay with counsel not simply because their lawyers follow the rules, but because they feel safe, respected and heard, making trust essential to business development, especially in high-stakes matters where reputational risk runs high, says Derrelle Janey at Olshan Frome.

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  Legal Tech Talks: Summize GC On Operating Strategically

  Lexi Lutz, general counsel of Summize, discusses how legal tech can make lawyers more proactive and less tied up in repetitive process work, so that they can spend more time acting as real business partners.

• How Associates Can Use AI To Gain A Biz Development Edge

  Junior lawyers can harness artificial intelligence to identify where they are gaining traction with clients and build a data-driven business development foundation long before conversations about partnership track begin, says Tigist Kassahun at Vinson & Elkins.

• Trump's EO Puts AI Agent Governance On GC Agenda

  Section 4 of President Donald Trump's executive order promoting the advancement of artificial intelligence innovation and security establishes a federal baseline around AI agents, so general counsel cannot wait for enforcement to define the standard, says Camilo Artiga-Purcell at Kiteworks.

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  RFP Reset: Standardize Pricing Requests

  To keep up with rising legal costs amid an industry overhaul fueled by artificial intelligence, legal departments can make outside counsel requests for proposal more defensible and cost-effective by making pricing requests uniform, requiring comparable fee templates and evaluating staffing assumptions, says Colin Levy at Malbek.

• Making Legal Cents: Create Marketing Clients Find Useful

  The law firm marketing efforts with the best return on investment are things that actively provide value to potential clients: practical business guidance, uncluttered proposals that anticipate their questions and opportunities to participate in curated industry conversations, says Shireen Hilal at Maior Strategic Consulting.

• Law Firm Leaders Should Adopt Founding Fathers' Bold Ideas

  To ensure continued success, law firm leaders helming their firms through the legal industry revolution should take inspiration from the Founding Fathers' bold decisions, such as James Madison's abandonment of the Articles of Confederation and George Washington's trust in junior officers', says Samuel Pond at Pond Lehocky.

• The AI Ownership Question Firms Can't Afford To Skip

  The artificial intelligence conversation among law firm leaders has advanced from adoption to governance and business impact, but it hasn’t resolved who maintains ownership and operational responsibility, which should be determined by the range of functions that AI touches, says Jennifer Johnson at Calibrate.

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  Biz Development Tip Of The Month: Practice Authenticity

  Attorneys who demonstrate who they truly are and what they stand for by sharing the human impact of their results, earning the media's trust by providing accessible analysis, and providing hands-on aid to their communities can build stronger reputations than any advertising budget can buy, says Ray DeLorenzi at RebuttalPR.

• Legal AI Adoption Tips And Takeaways From Dot-Com Bubble

  Legal artificial intelligence is on a similar trajectory as the internet in the dot-com era, where several internet companies failed after the initial market frenzy, but even if AI company valuations take a hit and the industry goes through a major reordering, legal leaders should note that the technology itself remains genuinely transformational for the delivery of legal services, says Gabriel Buigas at Integreon.

• Opinion

  Keeping PE Out Of Law Is Job For Courts, Not Capitols

  Efforts by lawmakers in California, Colorado and Illinois seeking to bar private equity firms, hedge funds and other nonattorney investors from owning or financing law firms risk intruding on authority that state constitutions and the inherent powers doctrine have traditionally assigned to the judiciary, says attorney Felix Shipkevich.

• Legal Tech Talks: WordSmith AI's CEO On Shifting Mindsets

  Ross McNairn, founder and CEO of Wordsmith AI, discusses how the lawyers who treat legal work like an engineering problem and can deploy legal intelligence at scale will define the next decade.

• Public AI Disclosures Raise Stakes For AI Agent Oversight

  Two recent reports shift the legal posture of every organization deploying artificial intelligence agents because they establish the foreseeability, for negligence liability purposes, of an AI agent becoming weaponized for data exfiltration, says Camilo Artiga-Purcell at Kiteworks.

• 7 AI Training Tips For Law Firm Summer Associate Programs

  Law firms trying to weave artificial intelligence into summer associate programs should build a program that isn't really about AI but teaches students how to think about using AI, with the goal of building judgment, understanding implications and leveling up in a way that's repeatable, says Zeynep Ersin at Seyfarth.