Attend any business of law event in 2026, and you’ll hear about the increasing importance of “soft skills,” like managing interpersonal relationships or strategically thinking through ambiguity.
For large law firms, this emphasis is part of adapting to technology’s expanding role in the profession. If generative artificial intelligence (AI) can create a plausible first draft of a legal document, the thinking goes, then client service becomes even more of a differentiator, for example.
But what if a legal technology company itself adopts a similar approach to emphasizing soft skills and interpersonal relationships?
According to Tony Muljadi, who leads the large law practice at LexisNexis, his company is doing exactly that — and law firms are seeing the benefits.
The company has expanded a “white glove service” for law firms using Lexis+ with Protégé, its AI platform for research, drafting and analytics.
It’s expanding its cadre of Strategic Business Development Leads and Legal Engineers, who work closely with law firm clients to guide meaningful AI adoption. It’s also enhancing its ability to customize systems to jibe with any firm’s unique and long-standing workflows.
LexisNexis’ legal engineers, first and foremost, understand both legal practice and how large law firms operate, Tony notes. This enables them to become trusted advisers who help attorneys fully leverage Protégé to meet all of their business goals.
“Lawyers get a peer, someone who’s had meaningful experience at a peer firm but who’s also spent time at LexisNexis and has a technology interest and skill set,” Tony says.
“The attorney can say exactly how the firm wants an item to be accomplished, and the legal engineer can understand the goals and integrate Lexis’ capabilities directly into the workflow.”
Here, Tony sits down with Above the Law to discuss how LexisNexis is investing in this emerging field.
Meeting Face-to-Face
It’s no secret that the AI era has brought unprecedented disruption to the legal industry. At LexisNexis, this dynamic continues to lead to closer client partnerships.
In the past, Tony notes, discussions with customers would focus more heavily on annual subscription renewals — tracking deadlines, negotiating rates, managing paperwork.
“The relationship used to be centered around features and the renewals, but today it’s much more about helping firms navigate change” he says.
Now, there are far more frequent in-person check-ins to keep up with the rapid and critical changes occurring in legal tech and the business of law.
LexisNexis representatives will regularly reach out to their partners to ask what new challenges they’re facing, and then the LexisNexis team will think through how they can help, drawing on the knowledge of the firm they’ve built throughout the relationship and evolving tech capabilities.
What’s new at LexisNexis that the firm may not know about? How can the legal engineering team meet the firm’s emerging needs?
“Even if we don’t have an immediate opportunity, we can at least be a thought partner, and provide some knowledge to the customer about what we’re seeing,” Tony says. “Drawing on our experience and knowledge working with thousands of law firm customers, we spend a lot of time providing our point of view of where legal AI is heading and what it means for their business.”
A Great ‘Equalizer’
While AI continues to transform law firm workflows — in particular, the work of junior associates — it’s also changing the operations of technology companies themselves.
“AI has been quite the equalizer in terms of allowing startups to come out of nowhere and drive value for the legal industry,” Tony says.
Over time, Tony expects to see a “convergence” of technology capabilities among law firms — virtually all will have access to AI-powered tools from Anthropic or Google, for example. Law firms will be multimodal, with access to sophisticated technology for tasks like tabular review and document drafting.
The dynamic leaves only a few key differentiators among legal AI systems, Tony says.
One is the content: AI models must leverage authoritative source content to ensure their outputs are accurate and can be trusted — particularly in law, where mistakes can have massive costs.
With this in mind, LexisNexis is continuing to expand its repository of proprietary content and invest in the authority it maintains through assets like Shepard’s and Law360.
The second differentiator, Tony says, is the human element: the service you offer, and the trust that you build among professionals through continued partnership.
As LexisNexis continues to hire legal engineers and expand its white glove service, it’s taking on a leadership role in this area as well.
LexisNexis has invested in its in-person events offerings, providing an increasing number of roundtable and networking get-togethers with law firm leaders while maintaining advisory boards of librarians, AI leaders, and CIOs. It recently launched a New York City Innovation Lab, and also maintains a program where LexisNexis partners with the largest law firms to co-build their AI-powered systems.
(View the full press release here. And feel free to book a free trial here.)
“A few years ago, it was enough to deliver great software. Today, firms expect a strategic partner who helps them navigate AI and transform how legal work gets done,” Tony says.
The ‘Efficiency’ Trap
Despite all of the benefits they bring, however, tech providers can still be wary of leaning too heavily into the time-saving benefits they offer to large law firms.
That’s because the billable hour remains at the core of the business, and some Big Law partners may see increased efficiency as a threat to profitability.
Recently, though, that’s all started to change — and it’s not just because alternative fee arrangements are becoming more common.
Technology, Tony notes, is helping firms increase profitability by eliminating the unbillable, written-off hours. It’s also helping firms streamline other nonbillable work, like business development processes. And it’s helping them win new clients by demonstrating that they’re more efficient than their competition.
“It’s interesting the way law firms are evolving their approach and strategy, and to some extent that shifts how we talk about our value,” Tony says. “But at the end of the day, the value we deliver remains, whether it involves the billable hour or not.”
Filling the ‘Chessboard’
Tony’s own path to legal tech and LexisNexis is a bit circuitous: a Harvard MBA, followed by stints in consulting and financial services before joining the company in 2017.
He then spent two years at a non-legal SaaS company before returning to LexisNexis in 2024 as head of its large law firm business unit.
The varied experience, he says, provides a solid foundation in functions like analytics, pricing, and customer success. It also reflects some important guidance he once received.
“The best advice I ever got as a general manager was to fill your chessboard with all of the skill sets you need,” he says. “Once that chessboard is filled up, you’re ready to attack, and you’re ready to play.”
Want to learn more about working with Tony and his team? Feel free to book a free trial here.
The post From ‘Vendor’ To ‘Partner’: How LexisNexis Is Deepening Law Firm Relationships appeared first on Above the Law.
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