Leading UK law firm Shoosmiths has tied a £1m bonus to AI usage. Partner Tony Randle shares what HR leaders can learn from its ambitious, inclusive transformation.
Law firm Shoosmiths has long had its eye on the potential of artificial intelligence, experimenting with early applications years before generative AI reshaped the conversation. But it was the rapid evolution of tools like Microsoft Copilot that catalysed a firm-wide transformation. In this case study partner Tony Randle shares how the firm has taken a structured, inclusive and strategic approach to embedding AI across the business – and what others can learn from their journey so far.
From early trials to strategic adoption
Shoosmiths initially began to explore AI when it first became commercially available and affordable around eight years ago. That was long before generative AI burst on the scene and in those days its capabilities were limited to application in small pockets of our business for discreet tasks. But when genAI exploded onto the world stage in November 2022 it became clear to us that AI had moved on from niche application and had entered a new era of broad usage that could benefit all our people as well as our clients. We thus embarked on a mission to explore what genAI is and what it can do. We internally assembled a highly experienced and motivated fact-finding team and arranged to speak to the major players – Microsoft, Google etc. Within a matter of weeks we had signed up to be one of the few firms to trial Microsoft Copilot (which we have now adopted broadly) and our exploration continues in pace and volume as the technology and opportunities continually develop.
Focusing AI on high-impact areas
There are two fundamental aspects to this. The first is to recognise that genAI is here to stay and will inevitably become part of the daily fabric of how everyone in the firm works in the future. AI has created a new world environment. As Darwin said it is not the strongest or most intelligent that thrive in a changing environment, but rather it is those most able to adapt. We realised we need all our people to become familiar and interested in AI while understanding how to use it safely. This meant creating an internal AI environment in which they could explore safely. Putting in place an AI policy early on was essential to set the guardrails right from the start.
Additionally, we needed to identify which particular business functions and tasks could benefit most from AI. We assembled a list of over 100 potential uses. Conscious of making cost efficient investments, we set about identifying where we would derive the greatest return and selected a very small number of uses that would generate a very large return across the business. Having the discipline to deliver what is on that priority list (and not be thrown off course by requests from within the business to prioritise them first) has been essential.
Leadership, ownership and HR’s role
Leadership has to come from the very top of the organisation. Our CEO David Jackson was personally involved in our first adventures with AI eight years ago and has the vision to see that AI will be crucial to increasing the competitive advantage of the firm in the years to come. He leads by example and is one of the most active users of AI in the firm. Likewise, the board has fully embraced AI by approving investment in a multidisciplinary team that is accountable for driving adoption and delivering return on investment.
Having spent the first three decades of my career practising law, I decided I wanted to spend my fourth decade helping our lawyers to do things smarter, faster and better for our clients. My role is full time (this is not something that can be done as a hobby alongside another day job!) and I work closely with colleagues from IT, project management, process improvement, risk & ethics, internal comms, external comms, HR, talent development and talent acquisition, as well as engaging innovation leads and champions from within the lawyering departments.
HR plays a particularly crucial part. Employees will have mixed feelings towards AI, as well as mixed aptitude to engage with AI. We’ve needed to ensure that no cohort or demographic feels left behind or unsupported. Our talent development team is crucial in designing comms and training to ensure everyone feels supported and motivated.
Our talent acquisition team managed by Samantha Hope has also been at the forefront of encouraging the use of AI by job applicants and in setting AI skills tests for candidates. Long gone are the days of grammar tests for aspiring lawyers!
Communicating with clarity and confidence
There is a strong ‘hearts and minds’ element to successfully embedding AI in an organisation. The media did us all no favours, with their dystopian predictions of robot overlords and job losses when genAI hit the scene! Therefore, it’s been crucial for us to get the messaging right to reassure our people that AI is not being introduced to replace them, but rather as a tool for them to control to help them work faster, smarter and better.
To reinforce the message around how fundamental AI is to the future strength of the firm and our people we are the first firm to have linked use of AI to our firmwide bonus goals – if our people hit one million uses of AI after 1 year, they will unlock £1m of bonus to be shared across the firm.
In addition to supportive and consistent messaging from leaders at the very top of the firm, we have found that peer to peer messaging is incredibly powerful. There is nothing more effective than someone in a department telling the story of how they started out sceptical and somewhat afraid, but now could not do without AI in their working day. Creating the spaces for those discussions to happen is also vital. We began by holding firmwide weekly ‘show & tell’ drop ins, that have now become routine within most departments’ own team meetings.
Creating a safe space for AI experimentation
The most fundamental aspect was to give all our people a safe AI sandbox in which to experiment, and to put in place an AI policy to ensure their use of AI is safe - for them, for the firm and for our clients. Alongside those basics, we have created training videos, eLearning modules, mandatory policy testing, firmwide webinars, team champions, and show & tell drop-ins.
We are also monitoring usage and seeking feedback, to ensure that no one is being left behind and to ensure that we are providing the support that people need.
There is an important dynamic to understand when it comes to embedding AI within a firm: the propensity for AI technology to develop is almost limitless, but the propensity of people to absorb change is most definitely finite. This means that we have to be selective about how much we ask people to absorb within any given timescale. We also have to remember that there are many other demands constantly placed on our people – they are not full time AI students! Being cognisant of that fact is all part of supporting our people.
Tracking progress and embracing new ways of working
The early signs are very positive, both attitudinally and objectively in terms of usage of AI. We do see a vast variance in the extent in how different people are using AI, some using it hundreds of times in a month and others hardly at all. We are working on bringing everyone up to using it on a daily basis.
In terms of benefits, we are seeing tasks completed more quickly and efficiently. We are also seeing an increase in the quality of outputs in some tasks, not least because the time saved by using AI is then being re-applied by the human in augmenting the output. And that is what AI is all about – not simply replacing human activity with machines but rather combining humans and machines to deliver a quality of output that was not feasible before.
Three takeaways for embedding AI successfully
- Lead from the top and by example.
- Create an environment in which your people can explore AI safely.
- Prioritise your AI projects and do not move on to any others until your priorities have been delivered.
Tony Randle, pictured, is partner, client tech & serv improvement, at legal firm Shoosmiths
