Inclusive AI: Making Sure Your Legal Tech Works for Everyone
Inclusive AI: “Equal” Tech Isn’t Always Fair Tech
When firms buy technology, there is usually a natural desire to standardize. One platform is easier to manage, easier to support, easier to secure, and generally easier to budget for than five different tools doing similar things. That makes sense. The problem starts when “standardized” turns into “everyone should get the same value from this.”
In a law firm, that is rarely how work happens. Different practice groups have different workflows. Attorneys, paralegals, administrative teams, and firm leadership use information differently. Even within the same role, people may interact with technology in very different ways. So when we talk about making AI accessible across a firm, the goal should not necessarily be to give every person the exact same thing. The goal should be to make sure people have the tools, training, and workflows they actually need to do their jobs well.
Practice Groups Aren’t Interchangeable
This is probably the most obvious place firms run into trouble with AI.
A litigation group may have strong use cases around reviewing documents, summarizing large volumes of information, building timelines, or working through discovery materials. A transactional attorney may care more about comparing agreements, reviewing clauses, drafting language, or working through diligence.
An estates and trusts group may have an entirely different set of repetitive tasks. The same is true for family law, employment, corporate, real estate, or any other practice area.
That does not mean every practice group needs its own AI platform. In fact, firms should be careful about going too far in that direction. Too many tools create their own problems around cost, security, training, and support. But it does mean the firm should understand the workflows before deciding what technology everyone needs.
We see firms get excited about a tool because one group finds an obvious use for it, and then assume adoption should spread naturally across the rest of the firm. When it doesn't, the conclusion is sometimes that those attorneys are resistant to AI. Or maybe the tool simply doesn't solve a meaningful problem for them. Those are very different situations.
Start With the Work, Not the Tool
One of the easiest ways to avoid this is to reverse the normal technology conversation. Instead of starting with:
“We bought this AI platform. How do we get everyone to use it?”
Start with:
“Where are people spending time today, and where could AI actually help?”
Talk to different practice groups. Talk to attorneys at different levels. Talk to paralegals and administrative staff. You are looking for the repetitive work, the bottlenecks, the places where people are constantly searching for information, rewriting the same thing, moving information between systems, or spending more time than they should on a process.
Once you understand that, you can start matching technology to actual needs. That may mean one firmwide AI platform works extremely well across most groups. It may mean the same platform needs very different training by department. Or it may mean a particular practice area has a specialized need that the firmwide tool doesn't address very well. The important thing is that the decision comes from the work rather than from the assumption that one technology experience fits everyone.
Training Shouldn't Be One-Size-Fits-All Either
The same issue shows up after the tool is purchased. A firm rolls out AI, schedules a one-hour training session, shows everybody the same five examples, and then wonders why adoption varies wildly. Someone in litigation may immediately see how the examples apply to their day. Someone in accounting or HR may leave thinking, “That was interesting, but I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with it.”
That is not necessarily a training problem. It may be a relevance problem. Firmwide training is useful for the basics: security, policy, what information can be entered, how the platform works, and general prompting principles. After that, training should become more specific.
Show litigators litigation workflows. Show the accounting team accounting workflows. Show HR examples that actually relate to HR. Show leadership how the technology can help them think through information, policies, or firm operations.
People adopt technology much faster when they can see how it applies to something they already do.
Accessibility Is Part of the Conversation Too
There is another side of inclusivity that firms should not overlook: whether people can comfortably interact with the technology in the first place. That can include things like voice features versus typing, display size and contrast, zoom capabilities, keyboard navigation, or workflows that work better for someone with reduced mobility or vision.
It does not need to become a massive technology project. It does require somebody to ask the question.
A “standard setup” may work perfectly well for most of the firm and poorly for someone else. The problem is that firms often don't discover that until after the technology has been deployed and the person has already struggled with it. The same applies to how people prefer to interact with AI.
Some users may naturally type detailed prompts. Others may work much better by speaking to an AI tool. Some people may benefit from having information summarized visually. Others may want a structured written response they can work through line by line.
Those differences don't mean one person is better at using technology than another. They mean the technology needs to fit the way the person works.
Don't Confuse Adoption With Compliance
There is a temptation when rolling out a new platform to look at usage numbers and assume they tell the whole story. Twenty people are using the tool every day. Ten people barely touch it. So the obvious goal becomes getting those ten people to use it more. Before doing that, ask why.
Do they not understand the tool?
Are they uncomfortable with the firm's AI policy?
Have they never been shown a workflow relevant to their job?
Does the technology add extra steps to something they already do efficiently?
Or is there simply not a strong use case for their role yet?
A firm can waste a lot of time trying to manufacture adoption where there isn't much value. The better goal is meaningful adoption. People should use the technology where it improves the work, not because somebody decided the firm needs a higher utilization number.
Standardization Still Matters
None of this means every attorney should be allowed to pick whatever AI tool they like. That creates a different problem. A law firm still needs to think about security, confidentiality, data handling, vendor management, support, cost, and governance. Allowing dozens of AI platforms into the environment because everyone has a slightly different preference is not a good strategy either. The balance is somewhere in the middle.
Standardize where standardization makes sense. Create a clear set of approved tools and policies. Then leave enough flexibility to recognize that different groups may need different workflows, training, features, or, occasionally, different technology. The goal isn't technological equality for the sake of equality. It's making sure the firm's technology environment actually supports the people doing the work.
The Real Question
When firms evaluate AI, one of the questions should be:
“Who does this work well for?”
Then ask the other half:
“Who are we leaving out?”
Maybe the answer is a practice group that doesn't have a strong use case. Maybe it is a staff member who needs a different way to interact with the platform. Maybe everyone has access to the technology, but only a fraction of the firm received training that made sense for their job. Those are fixable problems, but only if the firm notices them.
Inclusive technology does not necessarily mean everyone gets the same tool, the same training, and the same workflow. It means the firm understands how its people actually work and builds a technology strategy around that reality. Because giving everyone the exact same thing is easy. Making sure everyone can actually benefit from it takes a little more thought.
If your firm is evaluating AI or already has tools in place but isn't seeing consistent adoption, Clear Guidance Partners can help you look at the workflows, people, security requirements, and technology together before deciding what comes next.