Rajah & Tann

Rajah & Tann, one of Singapore's Big Four law firms with operations spanning 10 countries, faced mounting pressure as its caseload expanded across Southeast Asia. Lawyers were spending disproportionate time on administrative work — drafting meeting minutes, collating legal pleading submissions, and processing large volumes of legal data — rather than substantive legal analysis. The firm needed a solution that could integrate with its existing Microsoft 365 infrastructure, handle legally sensitive information accurately, and operate within a regulated environment. Issuing meeting minutes alone consumed one to two full working days per instance, a pace incompatible with the firm's growth trajectory.

Rajah & Tann partnered with Microsoft and managed services provider Crayon to deploy Microsoft Copilot — built on large language model and generative AI technology — across daily legal workflows. Crayon structured the rollout in two phases: first, technical readiness, which involved upgrading the firm's licensing from a CSP agreement to an enterprise agreement; second, change management, which included assessing use cases, identifying workflow pain points, and educating lawyers on Copilot's capabilities within Microsoft Teams and the broader Microsoft 365 security suite. This integration-first approach meant Copilot was embedded directly into the tools lawyers already used, removing friction from adoption and avoiding the need to introduce a separate AI platform.

The most immediate and measurable impact was on meeting minutes issuance. According to Rajah & Tann's head of technology, media and telecoms law practice, Rajesh Sreenivasan, the firm achieved the following:

• Meeting minutes issuance time: reduced from 1–2 days to 2–3 hours using Copilot in Microsoft Teams
• Lawyers shifted time previously spent on administrative tasks toward legal analysis and developing client strategies
• The firm improved its capacity to handle a growing caseload without a proportional increase in administrative overhead

Beyond the time savings, the deployment changed how lawyers approached document-heavy work, with Copilot helping process large data loads more accurately and efficiently.

• A managed services partner was essential — Crayon handled licensing restructuring, change management, and lawyer education, not just technical deployment.
• Targeting high-frequency, time-consuming administrative tasks first (meeting minutes, pleadings) delivers fast, visible ROI that builds practitioner confidence in AI tools.
• Seamless integration with existing infrastructure (Microsoft 365/Teams) removes the adoption barrier that standalone AI tools typically face in conservative, regulated environments.
• Upgrading licensing structure (CSP to enterprise agreement) was a prerequisite — firms should audit their licensing before deployment, not after.
• In regulated industries like law, security education is as important as capability training — lawyers need to understand data handling before they will trust the tool.