Firms are continuing to bring technology in-house—whether their attorneys know about it or not.

To be sure, knowing may be half the battle when it comes to persuading attorneys to become active participants in their firm's ongoing efforts around innovation. But given the amount of time it takes law offices to vet and implement new solutions, it's not hard to imagine attorneys losing track of the items being added to their toolbox. This may hold especially true for less flashy items that can't rely on buzzwords like "AI."

Such is the case with Harmony, an internal document management system used by Baker Mckenzie. According to Yoon Chae, an associate working on intellectual property and technology matters, the system allows attorneys to upload research, presentations or other informational resources they've uncovered over the course of a case.

The idea is that sharing these sometimes difficult to find pieces of information can shorten the legwork faced by other firm attorneys down the road. But Chae sees room for more employee investment. "I think it's still not where it could be, and I think the firm is trying to get more attorneys engaged so that we'll have a stronger base of knowledge that can be shared within the firm," he said.

Sometimes that's easier said than done. For a firm with multiple offices, successfully getting the word out about different innovation projects can be a challenge. Baker McKenzie hosts traveling innovation hubs at different locations to help demo new technologies the firm is deploying. Chae also indicated that firms are trying to boost engagement by setting up innovation hours that can be spent on technology-related projects and count towards an associate's billable time goals.

Of course, a firm has to actually sign off on a piece of technology before they can start promoting it internally. John Kaercher, who was recently upped to partner status at Baker Botts, indicated that the conservative culture at most law firms can sometimes make it difficult to keep up with the pace at which corporate clients are adopting new file sharing software and other tools. He pointed out that law firms—which traffic in confidential information—often have to vet a product extensively to ensure that the right security measures are in place.

"That's always been my biggest gripe, is it just feels like we're a little bit behind everybody else. But I don't know that there's really a way to fix that," Kaercher said.

Security concerns aside, some firms are actively striving for a more measured and methodical approach to the way they use technology. Chris Bonnaig, an associate at Bonnaig & Associates, said his firm is always willing to demo a new product, but they are cognizant about making sure they aren't investing resources in a new standalone solution that is offering a result already achieved inside Office 365.

Automation ranks high among the firm's priorities, particularly when it comes to solutions like workflow automation tool Zapier that allow users to integrate different applications. In the case of an attorney, for example, an email from the boss could be set to automatically trigger the creation of a new to-do item inside of their task management software.

"That's the direction that we've kind of gotten to move in since October. I'm finding that it's challenging—I've only started learning about these things recently myself," Bonnaig said.

While young and more senior attorneys alike may be on a somewhat level playing field when it comes to automation, associates may be helping to lead the charge on AI-related technologies. Laura Mitchell Baker, an associate in Crowell & Moring's government contracts group, posited that because associates are often brought onto a matter at the eleventh hour, they are more receptive to AI-powered contract review or legal research tools that can help get the job done faster.

However, the timely results may be swaying law firm leadership. "It's kind of mind-blowing, and [partners] are like, 'Fantastic, what else can you do with that technology?'" Mitchell Baker said.