The case for firm-wide adoption of legal AI

Why Irwin Mitchell moved early on legal AI

As generative AI began to transform legal work, Irwin Mitchell moved early, with the knowledge team having a critical role alongside other key functions, in deciding where the technology could deliver real value. The case for moving early was compelling for this full-service firm, but only a tool that met the quality standards it had upheld since 1912 would be taken seriously.

In 2024, Irwin Mitchell became the UK's first large firm to implement Lexis+^® with Protégé^™ across its operations. The decision marked an early move in a fast-changing market, but it also brought a harder question into focus.

How could a leading firm adopt AI at pace without weakening the accuracy, security and professional judgement its clients expected?

Watch the 1 minute video case study to learn more

The challenge of trusting AI across practice areas

Irwin Mitchell's leaders knew that the success of legal AI, both internally and with clients, would depend on the accuracy of its outputs. As Lynne Johnson, Practice Development Lawyer in the wills, trusts and estate disputes team put it, “Retrieval is brilliant with AI, but if you are retrieving information that you can't rely on and can't trust, then the AI becomes less useful overall”.

The breadth of Irwin Mitchell's work made that standard harder to meet. Across the firm, lawyers deal with complex, niche and fast-moving points of law, while working with vulnerable clients and cases involving anonymity orders.

Irwin Mitchell's legal AI must-haves:

1. Wide legal coverage
2. Clear citations
3. A secure setting fit for client material

Choosing Lexis+ with Protégé

Once Irwin Mitchell had defined the standard any usable AI tool would have to meet, Lexis+ with Protégé began to stand apart. Having relied on legal research sources from LexisNexis for years, the firm was already starting from a position of trust. Eleanor Windsor, Director of Knowledge Management, said that implementing Lexis+ with Protégé seemed like a “natural step” in the firm's decades-long partnership with LexisNexis. Confidence grew because the route back to authority was built into the workflow, whatever the practice area. As she explained, “the more that we can point them to a single source, the better”.

Irwin Mitchell supported the rollout with training, annual knowledge checks and a network of champions, helping establish a consistent approach across the firm. From the outset, leaders reinforced that AI should enhance legal work and never be used as a replacement for lawyers' judgement.

AI-powered research and drafting, united in one workflow

AI-supported research was one of the first areas where lawyers felt a clear difference in the quality of their work. Deborah Rose explained that when a new enquiry raises a niche legal point, she now ask Lexis+ with Protégé the question, reviews the initial answer, opens the cited sources, and checks the position before deciding next steps. Johnson saw the same change in knowledge work, and expressed the benefit it's had in preparing research notes.

From there, drafting now feels like a continuation of the same piece of work rather than a separate task. Once lawyers use Lexis+ with Protégé to assist with research, they are much closer to a workable first draft than in a fragmented workflow. A research question moves into a client letter, note, case summary or court document without sending the lawyer back to an empty page.

Using Vault to work across documents, timelines and drafts

The Vault feature within the LexisNexis ecosystem also extends that same research-to-drafting workflow across longer-running matters.

Rather than treating each task as a separate piece of work, Irwin Mitchell's lawyers now bring together multiple case documents in one secure workspace and use them throughout the life of a matter. From there, Lexis+ with Protégé helps generate chronologies, summaries and draft documents based on the material already uploaded, making it easier to stay on top of complex cases as they evolve.

For Johnson, this has simplified basic but important tasks, with summaries and timelines produced from the large volumes of material instead of being manually assembled.

Johnson also noted that Vault is useful for cross-checking, helping surface details that might otherwise be missed when lawyers are deep in the day-to-day of a case. Windsor agreed, and described Vault as a tool that helps lawyers work more efficiently while allowing them to keep adding documents and interrogating them as the matter progresses.

Results for lawyers and clients

Irwin Mitchell's adoption of Lexis+ with Protégé has delivered the expected gains in output quality, but its deeper impact has been felt in the day-to-day experience of clients and employees. As Rose put it,

Moreover, lawyers now have increased capability to spend time refining their skills in judgement, explanation and support. In turn, this strengthens their capabilities as legal professionals while improving the firm's credibility.

The emphasis on enjoyment in the profession and career development extends to juniors as well. For early career lawyers, using Lexis+ with Protégé has meant accessing a space where they can test understanding and build confidence. As Johnson said, it's “somewhere that they can go to ask questions that they might not want to ask seniors in the first instance”. Rose has also seen juniors become less dependent on constant senior support, using AI to explore an initial question before bringing forward a draft answer for review. Within the firm, that is viewed as “proactive development”, helping build a workforce that's better prepared for the future of legal practice.

Looking ahead to the future of legal AI

At Irwin Mitchell, the role of the knowledge team is evolving alongside technological developments to AI. Windsor described how “knowledge is increasingly central to the discussion”, as AI raises the value of strong underlying content and enables lawyers to handle the first stage of research themselves. That shift creates space for the knowledge team to focus on more complex questions, provide broader support and play a more active role in shaping how AI is used across the firm.

Today, AI sits less as a separate topic and more as part of ordinary legal work. At Irwin Mitchell, this transformation is why leaders like Eleanor Windsor believe in the importance of having “a very close working relationship with your technology providers”.

That foundation of trust gave the firm the confidence to move early and embed quality AI at scale.