Clifford Chance cuts internal policy lookup from two days to four seconds with Microsoft Copilot

Like most law firms, Clifford Chance was not a typical first mover on technology and faced intensifying pressure around generative AI governance, client data risk, and cost as ChatGPT-class tools arrived. Clients initially gave a blanket “no” to generative AI over fears that confidential data would become training data. The firm also needed a sustainable policy and risk process so lawyers could experiment safely without routing every use case back through risk and compliance.

After early Transformer research and a 2023 firm-wide rollout of Clifford Chance Assist on Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI platform (following trials with over 1,800 users), the firm announced a global deployment of Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Viva Suite in February 2024. IT, risk, and legal technology leaders built generative AI principles, a traffic-light data/tool policy, mandatory training, and supervisor disclosure rules before scaling. Copilot use cases include email-chain summarisation for client reporting, SharePoint/email search, structuring information, document critique, and self-service policy/compliance queries.

Copilot in Teams can return a policy summary, source quotation, and advice in about four seconds versus up to two days of manual searching across hundreds of policies. Leadership states that saving 15 minutes per lawyer per week would cover Copilot’s cost and that the firm is already saving more than that. The February 2024 announcement positioned Clifford Chance among the first organisations globally to deploy both Copilot for Microsoft 365 and Viva Suite at scale across its entire workforce.

• • Establish AI principles, traffic-light data rules, and risk categorisation before POCs so innovation is not blocked by ad-hoc risk review.
• • Pair personal responsibility and mandatory training with in-product guardrails so lawyers understand hallucinations and supervision duties.
• • Align on an enterprise platform (here Microsoft) for data privacy, sustainability, and long-term vendor roadmap rather than proliferating point tools.