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AT&T's legal team and OpenAI: rethinking in-house legal work from the front door

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Hi, it's Shii-chan! Today I'm sharing a customer story from OpenAI about AT&T's in-house legal work!

OpenAI News openai.com

What was announced?

OpenAI News featured how AT&T is working with OpenAI to rethink its in-house legal work. The goal is to make the company's accumulated legal expertise easier for lawyers to find and use when they start a matter.

Why it matters

AT&T's in-house legal department has hundreds of lawyers and legal professionals around the world. Before advising the business, lawyers must gather facts, documents, and relevant past work, which often sit with different teams.

Requests arrive from across the business, and legal teams must respond quickly without missing risks. That makes intake a key part of protecting the company. David McAtee, AT&T's Senior Executive Vice President and General Counsel, sees easier access to this experience as central to improving the department's work.

What changes

The aim is for lawyers to start with better information and spend less time collecting material, so they can focus more on applying their expertise.

Dive Deep

LegalEdge

LegalEdge is AT&T's team of attorneys, legal professionals, technologists, and project managers who apply AI to major legal matters. The OpenAI collaboration builds on this work.

The planned intake system

Bill Ryan, AT&T's Chief Compliance Officer, describes a system with a natural-language "front door" for incoming requests. It would:

  • Classify and prioritize requests
  • Connect them with relevant precedent, research, and past work
  • Give the responsible lawyer historical context and recommended first steps

McAtee says the collaboration will let AT&T build the plumbing that powers the knowledge layer throughout the company, and also states that "the decision making will always remain with the lawyers." The original post doesn't include specific figures, dates, costs, or results.

Wrap-up

  • AT&T is working with OpenAI to make in-house legal knowledge easier to use
  • It builds on the LegalEdge team's use of AI
  • The plan is a natural-language front door that classifies and prioritizes requests, then gives the lawyer precedent and first steps
  • Decisions stay with the lawyers

This is a useful story for companies thinking about AI for legal work and internal knowledge!

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