Welcome to Season 15, Episode 6 of Notes to My Legal Self, the in-house counsel podcast for lawyers navigating AI, legal technology, leadership, and the future of legal work.
Adam Becker, Director of Legal Operations at Cockroach Labs, returns to the podcast to share his perspective on one of the biggest changes facing legal departments today: the shift from using AI as a tool to working with AI as an advisor.
For in-house lawyers, legal ops professionals, general counsel, and legal leaders, this conversation explores what it takes to move beyond checking the "AI box" and become more fluent in AI-native ways of working.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why legal operations is becoming essential to modern legal departments
- The difference between adopting AI and becoming AI-native
- How AI can help legal teams work differently, not just faster
- Why legal ops leaders need to understand how lawyers actually work
- How knowledge management enables better AI outcomes
- How to build trust when introducing AI to legal teams
- Why legal leaders should experiment rather than wait for a mandate
- How to identify practical workflows where AI can make an immediate difference
- Why sharing AI learnings across legal teams matters
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
03:00 Legal operations becomes essential
05:00 AI and the second stage of legal ops maturity
08:00 From systems to AI advisors
10:00 The evolution of the Core
1213:00 Knowledge management and AI
15:00 AI adoption vs. AI-native legal teams
19:00 What makes a strong legal ops leader
23:00 Building trust with lawyers
27:00 Taking initiative with AI
31:00 Where legal teams should start
35:00 Mistakes legal departments are making with AI
38:00 One action legal ops leaders should take
Adam's hot take: The biggest opportunity isn't simply saving 10% of your time, it's changing how you work.
What would you eliminate or simplify if you had an AI advisor working alongside you?
Tell us in the comments.
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