According to Financial Times News, the winner of the FT Innovative Lawyers “most innovative intrapreneur” award for 2025 is Karen Contoudis Buzard, US head of A&O Shearman’s Markets Innovation Group. She led the firm’s day-to-day adoption of generative AI, working with legal tech company Harvey to develop the ContractMatrix platform. Her work also includes creating a Loans Module tool that automates complex loan document analysis, with early adopters reporting up to 50 percent less time on initial reviews. Other finalists include Carolyn Austin of K&L Gates, who launched a mandatory AI training program for all US associates in 2025, and Joe Green of Gunderson Dettmer, who conceived the firm-wide ChatGD app in 2023 that nearly half the firm used within months. The judges specifically sought to recognize the critical “hard yards” of turning pioneering ideas into practical, scalable breakthroughs.
The Unseen Engine of Legal AI
Here’s the thing about legal tech transformation: the flashy AI announcements get the headlines, but the real work is painfully unsexy. It’s about governance, training, data hygiene, and cross-disciplinary team building. The FT list is basically a tribute to that grind. These intrapreneurs aren’t just buying software; they’re changing firm culture from the inside. Carolyn Austin shifting focus from “compliance fears” to “skills and responsible use” is a massive cultural pivot. And Cindy Bare at Frost Brown Todd building a cloud-based data platform? That’s foundational, tedious work that makes any fancy AI application actually possible. Without these people, the AI is just a very expensive chatbot that no one trusts.
Beyond Drafting to Agentic Action
What’s really fascinating is the trajectory. The first wave was about document generation and review—think ContractMatrix and the 8-K tool. Useful, but still basically a super-powered assistant. Now, the conversation is quickly moving toward what they’re calling “agentic AI.” Karen Contoudis Buzard’s project on loan portfolio management and Joe Green’s tool for complex legal questions point to a future where AI doesn’t just help with a task, but manages a multi-step process. It pulls from internal knowledge, checks external sources, and delivers a reasoned analysis. That’s a different beast entirely. It starts to eat into work that was firmly in the realm of senior associates or junior partners. The question isn’t *if* that will change business models, but how fast and how firms will position it as a value-add rather than a threat.
The New Competitive Moat
So what’s the endgame here? It seems like these initiatives are building a new kind of competitive moat. It’s not just about having AI; it’s about having proprietary systems trained on your own unique data and workflows. Keith Halverstam’s work at Latham is a perfect example. By building a tool and a team around routine governance disclosure, they handle the “easy” work to position themselves for the complex, high-margin mandates later. They’re embedding themselves deeper into the client’s operational fabric. The firms that are systematically turning their collective knowledge—their deal terms, their negotiation playbooks, their regulatory insights—into a structured, AI-accessible asset are building something competitors can’t just buy off the shelf. They’re productizing their own expertise. That’s a powerful shift for an industry built on bespoke service.
A Quiet Revolution with Loud Implications
Look, this award category itself is a signal. Big Law is finally, formally, recognizing that the person who integrates tech is as valuable as the rainmaker. That’s a huge deal. For decades, the partnership path was clear: bill hours and bring in clients. Now, there’s a visible, celebrated path for the lawyer who can fuse legal, business, and technical expertise. That’s going to change talent recruitment and retention. And let’s be honest, it also creates a new pressure point. If a firm’s “most innovative intrapreneur” gets poached, what happens to that entire stack of proprietary tools and hard-won cultural change they built? The “hard yards” are becoming the firm’s most critical infrastructure. And that means the people who do them are, too.
