AI for law firms is moving into a new phase.
Until recently, much of the discussion has centred around which AI platform lawyers should use: Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, or one of the growing number of specialist legal AI platforms.
Microsoft's introduction of Copilot for Legal changes that conversation.
Microsoft has brought legal-specific capabilities directly into Microsoft Copilot, including tools designed to help legal professionals draft, review, and understand legal documents. The capabilities are available through legal plugins in Microsoft Word and Cowork for Microsoft 365 Copilot commercial subscribers.
For law firms already heavily invested in Microsoft 365, that's significant.
It reinforces an argument we've made previously at IT Simply: before introducing another AI platform into your business, it makes sense to understand what can be achieved securely within the technology ecosystem you already use.
Microsoft Copilot for Legal adds legal-specific AI skills to Microsoft Copilot.
Rather than asking lawyers to move their work into another AI application, Microsoft is bringing these capabilities into tools they already use.
In Word, Microsoft says Copilot can help legal professionals understand, summarise, draft, and review legal documents.
The significance isn't simply that Copilot can generate text. General-purpose AI has been able to do that for some time.
The more interesting development is that legal workflows are being incorporated into Microsoft 365 itself.
For example, Microsoft documents the ability to review legal documents through Copilot in Word and provide clickable citations back to the relevant areas of the source document.
Third-party reporting on Microsoft's announcement also describes capabilities including reviewing agreements against playbooks, drafting from approved templates and precedents, and applying proposed revisions as tracked changes.
The short answer is integration.
Most law firms don't need another piece of technology simply because it contains AI. They need AI to make the work they're already doing faster, easier and better controlled.
For firms operating in Microsoft 365, much of that work already takes place in Word, Outlook, Teams and SharePoint.
That's why Microsoft's approach is interesting.
Instead of treating AI as a destination you go to, Copilot increasingly becomes a capability embedded into where the work happens.
This is particularly relevant to legal work because Word remains central to drafting, reviewing and negotiating documents. Microsoft's legal plugin is enabled by default in Word desktop for Microsoft 365 Copilot commercial subscribers, although administrators can control access through Microsoft 365 management policies.
Microsoft's current documentation describes legal capabilities for both Word and Cowork.
Copilot can help explain and summarise the legal document you're working on within Word. Responses can include numbered citations that link back to the relevant source passages.
That source visibility is important. AI should support professional judgement, not replace it.
The legal capabilities support reviewing documents. Microsoft's announcement has also been reported as supporting review against playbooks and proposed revisions using Word's tracked changes functionality.
This moves Copilot closer to the way lawyers actually work with documents, rather than simply generating an answer in a separate chat window.
Copilot for Legal can draw on additional documents supplied as context, while Microsoft's announced capabilities include drafting using approved precedents stored in SharePoint.
For firms with well-managed precedent libraries, that's an important development.
It also highlights something we believe will become increasingly important:
The quality of your AI environment will depend heavily on the quality of the information environment sitting behind it.
AI makes document management, permissions, classification and information architecture more important, not less.
Microsoft isn't limiting its legal capabilities to the document currently open in Word.
Copilot's legal capability in Cowork is designed for broader legal work, and reporting on Microsoft's announcement describes examples including extracting obligations and deadlines, comparing agreements and building case chronologies across collections of information.
That points towards a much bigger change than AI-assisted drafting: AI beginning to assist with entire workflows.
No, and we don't think firms should look at it that way.
There are already strong specialist legal AI products and AI capabilities appearing within legal practice-management, research and document-management platforms.
Microsoft itself is working with legal technology providers on integrations spanning areas such as legal research, document and matter management, agreements, electronic signatures, legal AI and e-discovery. Reported partners include iManage, NetDocuments, LawVu, Docusign, Harvey, Relativity and Everlaw, among others.
So the question shouldn't necessarily be:
"Which single AI product should our firm choose?"
A better question is:
"What should our firm's core AI platform be, and where do specialist tools add enough value to justify adding them?"
That's an important distinction.
Earlier this month, we published Why Microsoft Copilot Should Be Your First AI Platform Choice. Our recommendation was straightforward:
Start with Copilot.
Establish your governance, train your people and understand what AI can achieve within the Microsoft 365 environment you already operate. Then introduce another AI platform where there is a defined business requirement that Microsoft Copilot cannot meet.
Copilot for Legal strengthens that argument for law firms.
The gap between a general business AI tool and specialist legal AI is narrowing as Microsoft adds legal-specific capabilities directly into Microsoft 365.
That doesn't mean Copilot will be the best tool for every legal task.
It does mean that firms should properly understand its capabilities before adding another AI platform, another set of integrations and another system requiring governance.
This is the part of the conversation we think law firms shouldn't overlook.
Giving someone Copilot doesn't fix poor information governance.
In fact, AI can make existing problems more visible.
Copilot works with information a user is authorised to access. Consequently, permissions across SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive and other Microsoft 365 services deserve careful attention before a broad deployment.
We've already seen this issue practically when working with law firms. In one recent Copilot rollout discussion, our recommendation was to understand existing access across Microsoft 365 before widely deploying Copilot because information users technically have permission to access may become considerably easier to discover through AI.
For a law firm, where confidentiality and appropriate separation of information are fundamental, this matters.
Before scaling Copilot, we'd recommend looking at:
In other words, deploying Copilot and becoming Copilot-ready aren't quite the same thing.
We wouldn't recommend rushing out and enabling every new AI capability simply because it's available.
Instead:
1. Understand where AI could genuinely help.
Look for repetitive, information-heavy activities such as document review, summarisation, drafting and comparison.
2. Review your Microsoft 365 environment.
Make sure permissions, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive reflect how information should actually be accessed.
3. Establish AI governance.
Set expectations about approved tools, appropriate information use and human review.
4. Start with a controlled group.
A pilot gives the firm an opportunity to identify valuable use cases, refine governance and develop internal knowledge before broader adoption.
5. Measure the outcome.
Don't measure AI adoption by how many people have a licence. Measure whether it saves time, improves consistency or removes low-value work.
That last point is especially important.
The objective isn't to "use AI".
The objective is to improve how the firm operates.
Microsoft describes its legal plugins as capabilities for Microsoft 365 Copilot commercial subscribers. The Word desktop legal plugin is enabled by default for eligible users and administrators can manage access through Microsoft 365 policy controls.
Firms should confirm the current availability and licensing applicable to their own Microsoft 365 tenant before planning a rollout.
Yes. Microsoft provides a legal plugin for Copilot in Word desktop that can apply legal skills when working with legal documents.
Yes. Microsoft says its legal capabilities can help users understand, summarise, draft, and review legal documents.
No. We see these capabilities as tools for assisting legal professionals with parts of their workflow. AI-generated work should still be subject to appropriate professional review.
Our view is that firms already using Microsoft 365 should establish what they can achieve with Copilot first. If a specialist legal AI platform then solves a defined problem substantially better, assess it on its business value, security, governance and integration requirements.
That's consistent with the approach we outlined in Why Microsoft Copilot Should Be Your First AI Platform Choice.
Copilot for Legal isn't interesting simply because Microsoft has added another AI product.
It's interesting because legal AI is moving into the mainstream productivity platform many lawyers already use every day.
For New Zealand law firms, that should prompt a broader conversation about AI strategy.
The question is becoming less:
"Should we use AI?"
and increasingly:
"How do we integrate AI safely into the way our firm actually works?"
That's the conversation IT Simply believes law firms should be having now.
If you're considering Microsoft Copilot, specialist legal AI, or aren't sure where to start, talk to IT Simply. We can help you assess your Microsoft 365 environment, establish the right governance and identify where AI can deliver worthwhile improvements in your firm.
You can also read Microsoft's original announcement: Introducing Microsoft Copilot for Legal.