LegalTech + AI
Lawyers in the Loop
The rise of the forward-deployed lawyer: attorneys embedded with AI and engineering teams to shape legal AI as it’s built — not review it after the fact.
Traditional consulting giants weren't built for this work. A team of four with the right legal knowledge and skill can accomplish more in a shorter period of time than a large team of generalists. That's exactly what we deliver: not just individual lawyers in the loop, but complete project teams built around them — embedded in your firm to accelerate AI project development and implementation and make quick, drastic improvements — live in production, not stuck in pilots.
A forward-deployed lawyer is a practicing attorney who works inside the build — sitting with engineers and product teams, bringing legal judgment to every design decision, eval, and pilot.
The model comes from the AI industry’s forward-deployed engineers: builders embedded directly with the people who use the product. Applied to law, it means the lawyer isn’t the last stop in the pipeline. They’re in the loop from day one.
What they actually do
- Sit with practice groups, map real workflows, and translate them into what gets built
- Define what “good” looks like for AI-generated legal work product
- Write and grade evals alongside engineers so models are tested against real legal judgment
- Pilot tools with the lawyers who will actually use them — and feed what breaks back into the build
- Bridge the AI team and the practice: fluent enough in both rooms to be trusted in each
Why firms need this role
AI built without lawyers fails on nuance
Engineers can make a model fast and fluent. Only a lawyer can tell you whether the output would survive a partner's redline — or a courtroom.
Review-after-the-fact is too late
Firms that treat lawyers as end-stage reviewers get tools nobody adopts. Firms that embed lawyers in the build get tools the practice actually trusts.
It's how the best AI teams already work
The forward-deployed engineer model — embedding builders directly with users — is how the most effective AI companies ship. Law firms are now applying it with lawyers.