Technology

Empowering Legal Teams Through Data and AI Innovation

At #CGI25, Paul Walker, Global Solutions Director at iManage, dove into how corporate legal teams are navigating the AI wave—highlighting key strategies for turning massive data sets into meaningful, actionable intelligence.


CCBJ: iManage is a huge brand with many partners, products, and services provided directly to clients. Can you give us a brief background and tell us more about what you’re showcasing this week?

Paul Walker: As you noted, iManage is a big brand, yet it retains the feel of a smaller, agile company. We experienced significant reinvigoration in 2015 when we divested from HP, granting us the autonomy to innovate more freely. Within a large organization like HP, niche-focused solutions can struggle to gain traction. By going independent, we've had the freedom to reinvent ourselves significantly.

Historically, our expertise lies in document and email management—capturing and organizing documents and emails to create comprehensive matter files. These files ensure that anyone can quickly access the rationale behind decisions, the finalized agreements, and regulatory compliance information long after transactions close. Over the past decade, this approach has dramatically expanded into corporate legal departments. Lawyers transitioning from law firms to corporate legal roles quickly recognized the limitations of generic corporate tools, which aren’t designed for the massive scale and complexity that legal operations require.

Our cloud platform has been transformational. Today, it houses approximately 15.5 billion items, growing by roughly half a billion pieces of content monthly. Nearly 3,000 customers rely on this platform to securely store critical documents related to some of the most consequential political, social, and economic decisions worldwide. The integrity of this data directly impacts lives, underscoring its significance.

We've also fostered an ecosystem of integrated applications, both internally developed and externally partnered solutions, particularly notable now with the rise of AI tools from Harvey and other providers. Clients seek these AI capabilities but prefer to keep their sensitive data within our trusted repository.

That’s intriguing. It aligns with discussions I've heard around creating a definitive database of record—similar to debates about establishing reliable educational materials.

Exactly, we're thinking along very similar lines. The emergence of generative AI over the past two years has made data quality and location central concerns for our clients. There's a noticeable shift toward seeking a "single version of the truth." We see more roles in legal operations and knowledge management explicitly emphasizing knowledge and data stewardship.

Historically, legal teams produced and maintained critical documents before returning them to various business units, leading to fragmented control. With AI entering the picture, there's now some regret over past practices because high-quality, well-structured data is essential for AI to deliver valuable insights. Early expectations of generative AI effortlessly navigating unstructured data have given way to the realization that AI requires clear, context-rich inputs.

Context seems key.

Absolutely. Users initially struggled with generative AI interfaces because prompts were too open-ended. We realized quickly that we needed to embed structured prompts behind user-friendly buttons, making tasks like summarizing depositions straightforward. Microsoft’s experience with Copilot reinforces this point—users want simplicity.

As an engineer by background, I’ve observed AI dramatically reduce the time needed to build apps. Eventually, AI might become intuitive enough that users without coding knowledge can build apps on demand.

That’s a significant shift.

Indeed. Initially, many legal firms built custom AI solutions, but we're seeing a shift toward off-the-shelf products due to their maturity and reliability. Firms have even acquired tech companies to secure their critical AI investments and talent, which raises the ongoing debate about whether law firms should maintain technology businesses internally.

Interestingly, professionals from other industries entering legal tech initially perceive the sector as outdated. However, the real issue is that the necessary technology for analyzing unstructured legal language didn't previously exist. Only now, with advanced AI, can legal teams truly benefit from tech-driven efficiency.

What is your primary focus here today?

Our main focus is enabling our clients to leverage their existing data more effectively through advanced AI and analytics capabilities. Clients frequently request complex searches—like quickly finding recent indemnity clauses in leases for specific jurisdictions. Answering such questions requires deep, clause-level document analysis combined with broader contextual understanding to deliver precise, actionable insights.


Paul Walker is the Global Solutions Director at iManage, where he spearheads strategic innovation and the development of advanced solutions in legal technology. With extensive experience in both engineering and legal technology, Paul is a thought leader in integrating AI and cloud technologies to enhance legal operations globally.

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