Seyfarth’s Hands-on AI Training Program for Summer Associates Featured in The American Lawyer

Seyfarth’s innovative approach to legal service was featured from a new angle in The American Lawyer, "'The New Reality': Summer Associate Training Zeros In on Generative AI," on July 30. The article underscored the firm’s culture “As AI becomes all the rage, Seyfarth is leaning into its history of innovation.”

Seyfarth chair and managing partner Lorie Almon explained to Am Law (and its affiliate publications) that, “as we started planning our summer 2024 program, we thought, ‘This is the new reality of how lawyers are going to practice. And it’s really important to think about generative AI as not just a tool that lawyers will use to do things the same way as they’ve always done them, but it really is fundamentally changing how we practice in many ways.”

She highlighted some of the artificial intelligence tools Seyfarth has used including Microsoft Copilot and Doc Q&A, which was created by the firm’s in-house innovation team at Seyfarth Labs.

Almon told Am Law that a key element of the Seyfarth program was a “think tank” that allowed summer associates to discuss their experience and ideas about the technology with Seyfarth lawyers and staff, and the summers “universally” came away with more nuanced feelings and more comfort about it.

Seyfarth partner Kevin Young, also teaches AI and innovation as an adjunct at the University of Georgia Law School, noted that the Seyfarth summer associates AI training program and his class are similarly designed to be “very hands-on,” adding that “the way to get better is to do it. Dive in. Learn what’s out there. Have those conversations and get comfortable being in the mode of curiosity and teamwork.”