Lucy Bassli
Lucy is an attorney, author of The Simple Guide to Legal Innovation, and the Founder and Principal of InnoLaw Group, PLLC. As a former Assistant General Counsel of Legal Operations and Contracting at Microsoft, she redefined how legal work is done and created one of the first managed service engagements with a law firm. In 2015, she was named to the National Law Journal list of Outstanding Women Lawyers, and an ACC Value Champion in 2016. Before joining Microsoft, Lucy was an associate at Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle in commercial bankruptcy and business transactions practices. Lucy is a highly sought-after legal industry expert working with corporate legal departments and law firms on modernizing legal service delivery, automation, smart risk-taking and alternative resourcing models. Lucy is a frequent writer, often contributing to industry books; and a speaker on legal services innovation, legal technology and legal process outsourcing. She recently developed her own courseware, Modernizing Your Legal Practice, a three-part series designed to help law firm lawyers to turn ideas into actionable business practices.
Jen Lenander
Sr. Director & Chief of Staff @ Elastic
Jen Spent over a decade figuring out how to make legal departments run smoother, smarter, and more strategically.
Memme Onwudiwe
AI Evangelist & Evisort Founding Team
Fascinated by AI, space law, and innovation more generally on the African continent.
Wrote an article “Africa and the Artemis Accords: A Review of Space Regulations and Strategy for African Capacity Building in the New Space Economy” was published in a peer-reviewed Journal on Space Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
FREE LIVE CLE CREDIT IS ONLY AVAILABLE FOR IN-HOUSE COUNSEL (FRACTIONAL GCs, GOVERNMENT ATTORNEYS, & ALSP ATTORNEYS INCLUDED) AND SUBSCRIBERS TO IN-HOUSE CONNECT ON-DEMAND.
IF YOU ARE A LAW FIRM ATTORNEY YOU ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND OUR LIVE EVENTS BUT UNLESS YOU ARE SUBSCRIBED TO IHC ON-DEMAND, WE WILL NOT BE PROCESSING YOUR CLE REQUESTS.
This program is approved for CLE credit in the following states: New York, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, Texas.
This program is pending CLE credit in the following states: Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Wyoming and Wisconsin.
This program is pending CLE and CPD credit for self-application by the attorney or for reciprocal CLE credit in the following states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Québec, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington.
We do NOT provide CLE for: Mississippi or Arkansas.
This program is appropriate for newly admitted attorneys and experienced attorneys.
Why AI Is Now a Legal Ops Imperative: What In-House Teams Must Do in 2026
Event Description
AI has rapidly moved from experimental hype to an operational mandate for in-house legal teams. As budgets tighten, workloads escalate, and business leaders demand faster, data-backed legal support, AI is no longer a future consideration—it’s a present necessity. This session explores why 2026 will be a tipping point for AI-enabled legal operations and how corporate legal departments can translate AI from abstract potential into practical, measurable impact.
Join us Wednesday, January 7th at 12pm ET / 9am PT as Legal Ops expert Lucy Bassli breaks down the highest-value, real-world AI applications reshaping in-house legal work. This session will dig into concrete examples across intake and knowledge management, and contract management, showing exactly how AI can streamline workflows, elevate decision-making, strengthen governance, and unlock operational capacity.
Key Takeaways
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Why AI has become mission-critical for Legal Ops performance heading into 2026
Real-world use cases:
- Intake & Knowledge Management – smarter routing, automated triage, and searchable institutional knowledge
- Contract Management – clause extraction, redline automation, and accelerated lifecycle workflows
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How to build an AI roadmap tailored to your legal department’s maturity and priorities
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Governance, risk, and change-management considerations when implementing AI
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Practical steps to start small, scale responsibly, and demonstrate early wins to business leadership
Who Should Attend
This session is designed for in-house legal professionals involved in legal operations, budgeting, technology evaluation, workflow design, contracting, or cross-functional enablement. It is especially valuable for counsel seeking to modernize service delivery and adopt AI in targeted, high-impact areas such as spend control, intake optimization, and contract lifecycle efficiency.
There is NO COST to attend this program!
This program is FREE, thanks to our gracious sponsor, Workday! If you can’t make it to the live program, the recording will be available for viewing via our paid CLE library, In-House Connect On-Demand!