Keeping Legal Ops Grounded While AI Takes Flight

In the first edition of our Legal Innovators UK 6.0 interview series, we sit down with Rachel Hawkins, Senior Legal Operations Manager at Osborne Clarke, to explore the real-world impact of collaboration, change, and culture in the AI era. With a mix of straight-talking pragmatism and a dash of Avengers-style flair, Rachel shares how her team balances technological innovation with the timeless fundamentals of good legal operations — from human-centric change management to cross-functional teamwork — ensuring every new tool delivers genuine value.

As a Senior Legal Operations Manager at Osborne Clarke, what do you see as the most critical aspects of legal operations in today's rapidly evolving legal tech landscape?

Addressing real client and business needs and delivering real tangible value has always been what legal operations is about, and it can be easy to lose sight of that at times. Generative AI is undeniably one of the most transformative forces in our sector today, but to really get maximum value from generative AI, it's important we don't lose sight of some of the fundamentals of good legal operations: optimising service delivery models; effective and human-centric change management; ensuring the technology meets real client and lawyer needs – all of this was relevant 10 years ago, it's arguably even more relevant now! Success comes from combining technological innovation, proven operational excellence, and collaboration between the right parties to deliver measurable value that directly supports our clients' business objectives.

I'm very mindful that might be a boring answer, but it's an honest one

Legal Innovators UK will heavily feature discussions on AI. How is Osborne Clarke approaching the integration of AI into its legal services and internal operations, particularly concerning responsible development and data security?

Our AI Management Board has been in place for 3 years and has business, technical and compliance workstreams working collaboratively to ensure our use of AI is impactful to our clients and, importantly, responsible, and accountable to our business, our clients, and our community. Our mantra has always been very much responsible by design – from our internal business processes to how we develop and launch both our own products and other products on the market.

Many legal departments are focused on demonstrating value and efficiency. How do you help clients leverage technology to achieve these goals?

Our OC Solutions team has been collaborating with our clients for over 8 years and at our core we're all about helping our clients succeed. Like the Avengers (stay with me here), we're a multidisciplinary team encompassing lawyers, consultants, legal engineers, developers, designers, data scientists, Lean Six Sigma practitioners and project managers – we all have our own superpowers, and we can bring the right Avengers to each project (to save the day)!

Our diverse team also represents that leveraging technology in an impactful way takes more than just the piece of kit – it takes a deep understanding of our clients' culture, sector, business challenges and objectives to optimise solutions which fit their unique needs and meet their specific goals. Whether that be optimising service delivery models, process redesign to drive efficiencies or implementing effective and human-centric change management – we have the right superpowers and can assemble the right team!

In your experience, what are the biggest challenges law firms face in encouraging widespread adoption of new legal technologies internally, and how does Osborne Clarke address these?

There are many! The one which fascinates me the most (for the time being) is change management. The adoption of generative AI has been quicker and more widespread than any other technology we have seen. From a change management perspective, we might think job done – people are changing their behaviours and adoption is high. But for me, the more interesting element of this relates to how generative AI technologies can change the sentiment within a business; how the technology and its use can influence, inform, and change the culture and values of an organisation – that might sound a little anthropological, but I think this is one of the most interesting elements around the new technologies we are seeing. 

We launched our own internal generative AI tool in 2023, and we've seen brilliant uptake as well as some truly creative ideas from our lawyers, using new technology to solve old (and new) problems. We're very much keeping our finger on the pulse of what this means for our culture, but so far, it's been incredibly positive for both our people, our business and our clients.

The event highlights "cross-functional collaboration." How important is it for legal operations to work seamlessly with other business functions, and what tools or strategies facilitate this at Osborne Clarke and for your clients?

"Legal operations" has so many meanings and if you asked 5 different legal ops professionals what it means, you’d have 6 different answers! That said, I think we would all say that legal operations is an enabler for cross-functional collaboration and bringing people together to achieve results is at the heart of legal ops. Working with all areas of the business, whether that's business services and legal support teams, information security, risk and compliance, innovation or legal teams is vital to create solutions which work for everyone, whilst delivering the most value for the client. That can only be done through collaboration.

We're big on collaboration at OC; collaborating with clients, collaborating between teams, and collaborating with our technology partners. We believe that the best ideas and the best solutions not only come from those working with the process or areas we are trying to improve or transform, but also from diversity of thought and experience. We're happy to encourage constructive and friendly challenge to any ideas to ensure that we are collectively creating the best solution we can. There's no room for egos in innovation.

What are you most excited to share with attendees at Legal Innovators UK 6.0, and what key takeaway do you hope they will gain from your session?

I'm hoping I can bring some really practical experience and ideas to Legal Innovators. While it's great to shout about the big wins and the hype in legal tech, I'm passionate about sharing the fundamentals that actually make technology work in practice; the nuts and bolts which often get overlooked but are absolutely critical for success.

The key takeaway I hope attendees will gain? Never lose sight of delivering real value. It sounds simple, but in today's legal tech landscape, it's surprisingly easy to get caught up in the excitement and forget to ask the fundamental question: does this actually solve a real client or business need?

Despite managing to shoehorn the Avengers into this interview, I do acknowledge that this practical approach isn't the flashiest…but that's how we really unlock value.

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Rachel Hawkins will bring her trademark mix of practical wisdom and fresh perspectives to Legal Innovators UK 6.0 this November. On Private Practice Day, she’ll join the panel “From Legal Advice to Legal Platforms: Legal Tech and the Law Firm-Client Relationship” — diving into how law firms can use technology to reshape strategy and strengthen client relationships.

Don’t miss the chance to hear from Rachel and other industry leaders shaping the future of legal services. Passes are live — will you join Osborne Clarke and other innovators this November?

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