Flex
Legal, the interim legal recruitment service, has announced a partnership with FirstAI to deliver extensive Copilot AI training to its legal talent. Following a smaller scale trial run, it was found that legal
professionals collectively saved 93 hours per week, with savings across both administrative and substantive legal tasks.

The comprehensive training is due to start this October, aiming to upskill legal professionals as AI proficiency becomes essential for both law firms and in-house legal teams. This includes Flex Legal’s junior talent, through
their Flex Trainee social mobility initiative, as well as their senior lawyers, with training delivered on a 1:1 basis. FirstAI specialises in helping companies integrate tools like Copilot into their operations to maximise output. In the first scheme of its
kind, Copilot has been chosen as 2024 reports confirm nearly 70% of the Fortune 500 now use Microsoft 365 Copilot [source].

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The AI training aims to seamlessly integrate with firms, helping legal talent develop an understanding of prompt engineering and agents. This knowledge is then fed back to Flex Legal’s clients to ensure the software is accessible to all; within two weeks following
the trial, legal teams had developed 305 prompts, and Copilot usage grew by 437%.

“The advancements in AI have put the legal market at a risk of serious change and disruption,” comments Mary Bonsor, founder of Flex Legal. “But it’s not something we have to just let pass us by, and we feel we have a duty to address this change head-on, and
give legal talent the skills they need to stay ahead of the curve. By equipping them with the knowledge to harness Copilot, we’re also enabling them to act as AI “influencers”, helping whole departments to upskill.”

Other key results from the trial run included teams saving 3.5 hours per week in comparing policy handbooks, almost 7 hours for legal retainer reviews, and 15 hours for witness interviews and drafting preparatory emails. For Legal Directors, a full workday
(8.75 hours) was saved on drafting client-facing emails, and 9.5 hours per week was saved in tasks such as document summarisation and review, correspondence, and researching company information. By showing those in legal roles how to use and apply generative
AI, the training will upskill talent at all levels to include not just legal knowledge, but also technological application.

Christina Chen, CEO of First AI, added: “AI adoption isn’t just about technology, it’s about people. That’s why we’re excited to partner with Flex Legal, whose commitment to building diverse, future-ready talent perfectly complements our mission. Together,
we’ll embed AI capability inside legal teams, helping firms unlock efficiency, scale expertise, and prepare their people for the future of work.”

Successful adoption of generative AI has shown to improve the client experience, the quality of work, and operational efficiency and productivity. Whilst firms have made investments for Copilot, Flex Legal is making the investment
in people to use this software to its full ability. Find more information via
https://flex.legal/
or on 0203 920 8310.