From Bottlenecks to Breakthroughs: GWI's Legal Ops Transformation with AI
Managing thousands of queries with a small legal team was a constant challenge for GWI—until they discovered the power of automation. Here’s how they used AI to cut response times from weeks to seconds, freeing up their team to focus on what really matters.
At the latest Legal Tech Buyer’s Club: Live event, organised by Crafty Counsel, I had the pleasure of speaking with Verity Sparling, Head of Legal Operations at GWI.
During our conversation, Verity shared her team’s journey of using technology to tackle operational bottlenecks, reduce inefficiencies, and ultimately free up time for higher-value work.
This is the story of how a small legal team managed a mountain of work in a growing organisation—and the lessons they learned along the way.
This is the future of legal operations: hiring AI agents as dynamic extensions of your team to take on specific workflows end to end, from compliance checks to contract review and beyond.
The Challenge: A Mountain of Legal Queries
GWI is a market research SaaS company that delivers insights to clients through an online platform. As a company serving numerous customers, the legal team found itself managing a large number of queries, particularly around compliance and onboarding.
One of the most significant pain points was "reverse procurement." This process required the legal team to respond to extensive onboarding surveys from customers before contracts could be finalised. These surveys varied widely in length and complexity—some consisted of a few questions, while others had hundreds of queries on topics like cybersecurity, ESG policies, and company operations.
With just nine people on the legal team, supporting a company of 550, it became a resource drain. To manage, the team relied on a manually maintained FAQ document—a spreadsheet that Verity described as "huge" and unwieldy. Answering these surveys took weeks, sometimes months, and the sheer volume of work made it difficult for the team to focus on other priorities.
“We were inundated,” Verity explained. “The time it took to interpret and respond to these requests was just unsustainable.”
Seeking a Solution
Verity’s search for a solution began with understanding the core of the problem. While traditional contract lifecycle management (CLM) tools were initially considered, they didn’t address the specific challenge of automating responses to onboarding queries.
Through conversations at legal tech events, Verity learned about emerging technologies designed to process and manage high volumes of frequently asked questions in legal and compliance contexts. This inspired her to explore AI-based tools that could provide dynamic, reliable answers to these complex queries.
The decision to adopt an AI solution wasn’t taken lightly. Verity emphasised the importance of assessing the needs of the team, understanding the problem deeply, and weighing the cost and benefits of potential solutions.
“I knew I needed a tool that could learn and adapt,” she said. “Something more than a static database or a chatbot—something that could interpret and respond with the nuance required for legal operations.”
Implementation: From Spreadsheet to Automation
Transitioning from manual processes to an AI-driven solution took careful planning. Verity’s team started by cleaning up their data to ensure the system had accurate and comprehensive information to work with. This initial phase, while time-consuming, was critical to the success of the project.
Once their data was ready, the AI agent was trained and integrated into the company’s existing workflows, including Slack, where teams could access it directly. For Verity, making the system self-serve for the sales team was a key step. Instead of relying on the legal team to process every request, sales could now input their queries into Slack and receive responses instantly.
“The integration was surprisingly quick,” Verity shared. “From initial setup to going live, we were able to see results in just a few weeks.”
The Impact: Time Saved, Confidence Gained
The results of automating these workflows were significant. With the AI agent handling over 1,000 queries per month, response times dropped to an average of just 40 seconds. This was a stark contrast to the previous workflow, where responses often took weeks.
For Verity and her team, the biggest win was time. Freed from the repetitive task of responding to onboarding surveys, they could redirect their energy to more strategic initiatives, like improving corporate governance and supporting other parts of the business.
The change also brought more transparency and trust to the process. Where once the sales team felt disconnected from the backend operations, they now had confidence in the system and the information they received.
“We’ve built trust, not just in the tool, but in the process,” Verity said. “It’s no longer a black box. Everyone knows where the answers are coming from and that they’ve been validated.”
What’s Next for GWI?
Encouraged by the success of automating onboarding workflows, Verity’s team is already exploring additional applications of the technology. They are looking to automate other repetitive tasks, including frequently asked legal questions and vendor contract reviews.
One of Verity’s next projects involves using AI to triage vendor contracts—automating the initial review to identify risks and flag contracts for further examination only when necessary. This is particularly important for low-value, low-risk contracts, which can otherwise tie up precious resources.
“For me, it’s about balancing efficiency with risk management,” Verity explained. “If we can quickly identify the key risks in a contract, we can focus our time on what really matters.”
Lessons Learned
Verity offered practical advice for others looking to adopt similar solutions:
- Start with a Defined Problem: Focus on a specific, high-impact use case to demonstrate value quickly.
- Clean Your Data: A successful AI implementation depends on the quality of the data it’s trained on.
- Engage Stakeholders Early: Make adoption seamless by integrating tools into existing workflows, like Slack or Teams.
- Think Beyond Automation: Use the insights generated by these tools to identify trends and opportunities for improvement.
Redefining Legal Operations with AI Agents
GWI’s journey demonstrates how embracing technology can transform legal operations. By automating repetitive and time-consuming workflows, their legal team not only scaled its capacity but also unlocked the freedom to focus on strategic, high-value work. This is the future of legal operations: hiring AI agents as dynamic extensions of your team to take on specific workflows end to end, from compliance checks to contract review and beyond.
For legal teams struggling with mounting workloads, GWI’s experience serves as a powerful example of how AI agents can deliver efficiency and precision while empowering teams to do more with less. The key lies in pairing the right tools with thoughtful implementation, enabling legal teams to focus on driving impactful change.
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