Kelley Drye & Warren LLP

Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, a US law firm with over 180 years of history, faced mounting inefficiency across two high-frequency legal workflows. Attorneys reviewing lease agreements against client playbooks had to manually examine each document and transfer extracted data points into spreadsheets — a labor-intensive process that introduced inconsistency and error risk. Separately, when new clients submitted outside counsel guidelines (OCGs), the firm's review of those documents against internal policies was slow and inconsistent, creating compliance gaps and delayed onboarding. Both workflows consumed substantial attorney time that could otherwise support higher-value client work, and the manual nature of each created measurable risk exposure across litigation, corporate, and transactional practice groups.

Kelley Drye deployed the NetDocuments AI App Builder (powered by PatternBuilder MAX) — a platform already in use as the firm's enterprise content management system since 2016 — to build two purpose-built AI applications using large language models and generative AI. The Lease Extraction App automates structured analysis of lease agreements against client-specific playbooks, extracting defined data points directly within NetDocuments for attorney review. The Outside Counsel Guidelines App reviews incoming OCG submissions against a firm-defined playbook developed collaboratively with general counsel, conflicts counsel, and directors of cybersecurity, information governance, and billing. Implementation was completed with support from 3545 Consulting, a specialist legal technology partner. Critically, both applications operate entirely within the firm's existing NetDocuments environment, eliminating the need to export sensitive client data to third-party systems — a significant factor given law firms' stringent ethical and information governance obligations.

Both AI applications delivered immediate operational improvements from the point of deployment. The Lease Extraction App converted a multi-step manual review process into a workflow completable in a few clicks, returning structured, attorney-ready outputs without leaving the NetDocuments platform. The OCG App accelerated response times to new client guideline submissions, improved review consistency, and created an exceptions database that gives general counsel and conflicts counsel ongoing visibility into policy areas requiring renegotiation or monitoring. Qualitative outcomes include:

• Reduced attorney time on document extraction and policy review tasks
• Improved accuracy and consistency across both workflows
• Lower information governance risk by keeping all AI processing within the firm's secure DMS
• Stronger cross-functional alignment, with stakeholders from legal, cybersecurity, and billing involved in playbook design

• Playbook-anchored AI produces auditable outputs: structuring AI applications around defined playbooks makes results consistent and easier to review — critical in regulated legal environments.
• Platform consolidation reduces risk: keeping AI tooling within an existing secure DMS eliminates data egress concerns and simplifies ethical compliance.
• Cross-functional playbook development improves adoption: involving general counsel, conflicts counsel, and operational directors in defining the AI's logic builds institutional buy-in and surface-area coverage.
• Implementation partners accelerate time-to-value: engaging a knowledgeable legal technology partner (3545 Consulting) shortened the path from use case selection to production deployment.
• Start with high-frequency, structured workflows: lease extraction and OCG review are repeatable, document-centric tasks — ideal candidates for early-stage generative AI automation.