Google + Existential Risk Avoidance – Artificial Lawyer

Gil Perez, the head of innovation at Magic Circle law firm Freshfields, is taking AI very seriously. ‘We need a learning mindset. Things are moving so fast now and if you’re not at the beginning [of this learning about AI] then that could be an existential threat to the firm,’ he tells Artificial Lawyer.

Perez, who is joined by partner Nick Frey, a member of the firm’s innovation board, stresses that at the same time he is totally pragmatic and refuses to jump on any bandwagon, or make public statements just for effect. That said, their announcement of a deeper engagement with Google – including to develop agentic tools – certainly won some attention recently.

Google

So, let’s break down what Freshfields’ AI strategy is. Let’s begin with Google – which is a client of the firm. Why get so close to Google’s tech offering when much of the legal world lives in Word?

‘The key element is that clients want less friction and we see that the world has diversity [of tech stacks]. Some companies have a Google stack and use Google Drive and Google Docs, and people want to keep on using it. So we need to adapt to the client needs,’ he explains.

And on the AI side, he stresses again that this realm is still totally in flux, and so settling on a single all-in approach doesn’t make sense. He’s keeping the firm’s options open, hence of course they work with Microsoft, but they’re going deep with Google too.

‘With AI, things are far from settled. There are changes even on a daily basis and so we do not want to be limited,’ he adds.

Then there is the tool development side of things. Again, although Freshfields doesn’t talk that much about it, they’ve built over several years a range of tools internally for many different point solution needs. These tools can be spun up, sometimes quickly, and then after a few months can be retired, Perez says, while others see long-term use.

Working with Google, such as using its agentic offering, or building applications that tap Notebook LM, allows them to be very flexible.

‘We can build tools, use them for a few months, and then chuck them,’ he says, then adds, ‘as things move so fast.’

The moving fast aspect, as you can see, is a constant theme here. And Perez, who lives in California, sees that rapid disruption to the tech ecosystem happening better than some.

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Buying Legal Tech

Perez is 100% pragmatic about the need to buy tools or build them. Either approach is good. It depends on what can be done internally, and what is out there. If, as in Frey’s litigation field, they need a specialised tool to sort through pleadings, and have all those docs in their own specialised environment, and with their own RAG methodology, then they’ll have a go at DIY. If that homemade tool is clearly superseded by something on the market, they will buy that and without a hint of regret they’ll dump the DIY tool. (And one can tell the reverse is also true.)

It’s all about the use case and what fits best…at that moment in time. And that includes being brutally frank about what the foundation models can do.

He gives the example of cars that have exactly the same engine, but different seats. If, for example GPT-5 can get them to X on a use case, and some products in the market are just doing the same and adding some extra tooling that they can perhaps add themselves….well, you guessed it, they will DIY.

So, AL has to ask about Harvey and Legora. Perez is blunt again.

‘Going with a single vendor is the wrong way to go,’ he states and stresses that there is no company out there that can address all of their needs. The firm’s many partners and their clients have complex needs and there just isn’t one super-solution out there, in his view.

That said, later in the discussion, Perez notes that despite this strongly held view the firm knows plenty about what Legora and Harvey can do and they maintain an open mind. And again, there’s that fierce pragmatism underlined with a tendency to favour the homegrown solution approach that leverages wider tech offerings.

Frey now joins in and also notes that although many legal tech tools will tell you they work around the world – and Freshfields is a global law firm – in reality they don’t work that well in all languages, for example, in German – a key market for them.

‘With Google, it’s very flexible, they integrate with our tools [which they have built internally], and not every legal tech product works well in German for example, so if we build something ourselves then it [works],’ he explains.

‘We don’t focus on grabbing headlines, but on the best client service. It’s easy to just go out and say we have ‘X’ legal tech product,’ he adds. ‘But every client has specific requirements, they want customisation.’

We then explore client AI demands. They note that no client has refused to let them use AI tools, but some have very detailed demands about how any AI tool will be used on their matters – another example of custom needs.

Agents and Economics

We then move into agents, a subject that Perez clearly believes has a lot more room to grow and evolve.

‘We created an agentic product that creates an issues list, and can generate the format that we want, and that’s shielding the associates from having to do that work. We can also switch between GPT models and Gemini,’ he says – and again with the emphasis on self-reliance and choice.

But, the comment about ‘shielding associates’ from laborious work….which inevitably will cost the clients as time equals money, gets AL’s attention.

So, what is this all for? The firm is clearly investing a lot of time and attention into AI. Why do this? More money for the partners? Lower bills for the clients? Less risk for the clients? Faster work? What is the reason driving this? After all, Freshfields is keen to stress they are a firm that doesn’t follow tech trends just for the sake of it.

We talk around the issue and the reality is that Freshfields, on this complex point, is about at the same stage as many other firms, i.e. the externalised detail of the economic ‘why’ is not wholly there yet. Instead, it seems it’s more instinctual: they feel the client need, they see the environment changing rapidly, they can sense the immediate efficiency gains….all of those things, and also as noted above they understand how risky for them as a business it would be to get left behind…..

But, is there a strongly set out economic strategy that sits next to the technical AI strategy? It didn’t feel like there is – as is exactly the same with most large firms at present. Although, it does feel that as management teams see their firms leveraging AI at scale they will eventually gather enough data to build out solid economic plans to go with the tech. Time will tell.

Perhaps the simple answer is that it’s just too early, even for leading law firms, to figure out the economics of it all.

That said, Frey does offer one economic point: ‘AI allows me to manage more files, and it allows me to better manage bulk, and that means better service [for the clients].’

I.e. better efficiency is good for the clients, so they keep coming back.

Conclusion

As seen, Freshfields’ AI strategy can be summed up as: ‘Be pragmatic, be flexible, build your own when you can, and keep learning because the AI market is changing very rapidly, to the point where to stand still is truly a business risk.’

Perez concludes: ‘A law firm used to be the brand times the people you have, and tech was just a constant. Now tech is a multiplier to this formula.’

And he and the firm see that AI is going to be more and more important to that multiplier effect.

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