Overview

Most law firms now have lawyers using AI daily, yet very few have caught up their governance to match. This practical course gives partners and practice leaders the leadership skills to close that gap: setting an AI policy, building a real supervision system for juniors' use, answering clients' AI questions and evaluating vendors, and measuring whether adoption is genuinely working. Four short units.

Target Audience

Law firm partners, practice group heads and anyone responsible for how a firm adopts AI.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion, learners will gain a full and clear understanding of:

• Why having no AI policy is itself a risk decision, and what a working firm or practice-group policy actually needs to cover
• How to set a deliberate risk appetite and build the policy with input from the fee-earners who will use it
• How to design a practical supervision system: review checkpoints, competency expectations by seniority, and real training
• How to handle a junior's AI-related mistake in a way that protects standards without driving it underground
• How to answer clients' AI questions, evaluate AI vendors, and navigate the tension between AI-accelerated work and billing
• How to measure whether AI adoption is actually working, and lead a practice group through the change it requires

Features and Benefits

• Written for complete beginners: practical, jargon-free and easy to follow.
• Current and fact-checked: researched against up-to-date 2026 sources, including the latest tools and regulation.
• Four short, focused units with gated progression; each unit unlocks once the previous one is passed.
• Light, formative interactions running through every unit (click-to-reveal, quick knowledge checks and estimate-and-reveal sliders), never scored.
• An end-of-unit quiz that finishes with a marking screen showing which answers were right or wrong, with a short explanation for each.
• Easy retakes: a failed quiz drops the learner straight back into freshly shuffled questions, with no need to click through the unit again.
• Optional audio narration on every screen (the learner chooses to listen), plus narrated motion-graphic video introductions, with captions throughout for accessibility.
• Responsive layout, suitable for PC, tablet and mobile.
• SCORM 1.2 conformant (single SCO); reports completion and an averaged score to any compliant LMS.

Course Contents

Unit 1: Setting the Policy

• Why individual AI adoption has raced ahead of firm governance, and why having no policy is a decision, not a default
• The five elements a working AI policy needs to cover, from approved tools to review checkpoints
• Setting risk appetite as a leadership judgement, and building the policy with fee-earner input
• Keeping the policy alive with a real review cadence, and deciding who should own it

Unit 2: Supervising Adoption and Juniors' Use

• Building a supervision system: mandatory review checkpoints and competency expectations that scale with seniority
• What a real AI training programme covers, and the evidence on protecting junior lawyers' judgement
• A practical supervision checklist a practice group can adopt
• Handling a junior's mistake fairly, and measuring whether the policy is actually being followed

Unit 3: Clients, Risk and the Business Model

• What clients now ask in RFPs and AI governance audits, and how to translate risk appetite into a client-facing answer
• Evaluating AI vendors: data handling, security, contract terms and the true cost
• The real tension between hourly billing and AI-accelerated work
• Alternative fee arrangements, transparency about efficiency gains, and how to hold the client conversation

Unit 4: Measuring Impact and Leading Change

• Why buying licences isn't the same as knowing AI is working, and what to measure instead
• Why a clear AI strategy makes success far more likely
• Leading fee-earners through change, including the sceptical ones, and leading by example
• Keeping governance current as the landscape moves, and a practical leadership action plan