Powering Up Legal Workflows

At ILTACON 2025, I had the chance to sit alongside three fantastic colleagues - Leanna Martinez, Director of Innovation, Systems and Data at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, Luke Kopmeyer, Innovation Technology Manager, Gunderson Dettmer, and Mitch Calley, Legal Operations Manager, Westfield - to talk about something that’s both deceptively simple and incredibly powerful: the Microsoft Power Platform, and what it can do for law firms and corporate legal teams.

Our goal wasn’t to dazzle people with jargon or sci-fi visions. We wanted to show how, when used with a bit of thought, tools like Power Automate can quietly take the grind out of everyday work. That means fewer repetitive clicks, less chasing down data, and more time to focus on the work that moves the needle.

We kicked off with the basics - triggers, connectors, and desktop flows. It might sound elementary, but getting those right is the foundation for everything that comes next. From there, we dug into custom connectors, which open the door to tying together internal systems, legacy tools, and even quirky third-party services that don’t naturally talk to each other. I shared examples of how this can make life easier - like automating employee onboarding steps or getting older systems to behave as if they were built for today’s workflows.

Once we’d set the stage, we stepped into “agentic” flows - pairing Power Automate with Microsoft Copilot AI. This is where it gets interesting. One demo showed how a lawyer could search a bank of Master Service Agreements in plain language, get a pinpoint-accurate answer, and instantly draft a ready-to-send email to a client. That’s not theory - it’s something you can build right now, and it blends information retrieval with action in a way that feels natural.

A big message I wanted to get across was: start small. It’s tempting to go big right away, but I’ve learned that small, reliable wins build trust and momentum. You can layer in complexity later once you know it works.

We also had some fun trading “favorite bad habits” - the little mistakes we’ve all made. Mine? Not renaming connectors (which will come back to haunt you), ignoring loop limits (hello runaway processes), and skipping documentation (which seems harmless until you have to update something six months later). None of these are glamorous, but they’ll save you from much frustration.

What I loved most was that everyone on the panel agreed: automation isn’t about cutting people out — it’s about cutting out unnecessary effort. In the legal world, where deadlines are tight and accuracy matters, that’s the kind of change that sticks.

By the end, I think folks walked out not just inspired, but with a clear picture of how to start. Maybe that’s with a simple approval request. Maybe it grows into a more intelligent, AI-assisted process. Either way, it’s steady, achievable progress — and in our world, that’s often exactly what’s needed.