To achieve this, the firm launched an internal Accelerator Program designed to integrate Legora into real workflows while upskilling lawyers and consultants across the business. Participants were brought together from across the firm to identify opportunities within their practice, develop workflows, and support their teams to adopt new ways of working.

Through the Program, participants became MinterEllison’s first cohort of ‘legal engineers’—professionals equipped to apply AI in their day-to-day work, improve how work is delivered, and act as change advocates within their teams.

What began as a pilot initiative has now evolved into a rolling program, building AI capability across the firm and creating a network of individuals who are driving change, sharing knowledge, and helping to embed new, AI-enabled ways of working at scale.

With Legora, MinterEllison:

• Launched an Accelerator Program to build internal AI capability across the firm

• Identified more than 150 use cases to support complex legal and consulting work

• Built a growing library of workflows to reduce friction and improve delivery

• Developed a network of legal engineers driving change within their teams

The challenge: from adoption to meaningful integration

From the outset, the goal was to drive both practical outcomes and meaningful behavior change across the firm.

As Kate Booth, Head of Learning and Development at MinterEllison, explains: “We were looking for quantitative impact — workflows built — but also qualitative impact in terms of building trust, confidence and engagement across the firm. Together, those elements are what deliver real strategic impact.”

To accelerate adoption, Legora was introduced firm-wide, with over a thousand employees logging in on the first day. This created immediate engagement, but also highlighted a deeper challenge: moving beyond initial use to meaningful impact.

“Frequency of use doesn’t always give you the complete picture,” Kate explains. “What we wanted to understand was the significance and sophistication of how Legora is being used.”

For MinterEllison, real value would come from integration—embedding AI into how legal work is performed and how client value is delivered. “That’s where the Accelerator Program sits — in the integration stage, beyond adoption,” Kate says.

An Accelerator Program designed for capability and change

Participants were seconded to the Accelerator Program and relieved of billable work. The aim was for them to focus on identifying where Legora could support their practice areas by increasing value to clients.

“The model works because it’s practice-group-embedded,” Kate explains. “It’s about creating dedicated capacity and building a recognized cohort, because we know cohort-based learning is really powerful.”

Working alongside Legora’s Legal Engineers, participants identified more than 150 use cases and began developing workflows to support them. Murray Edstein, Head of Engagement, APAC at Legora, explains: “Participants leave the Program with practical workflows they can refine within their teams, alongside a deeper understanding of how AI supports complex legal reasoning.”

Investing in people and building capability from within

For MinterEllison, the Accelerator Program presented a clear opportunity for investment in its people and their future.

"The Accelerator Program goes well beyond experimentation at the margins. It  builds genuine capability into the way we work, so we can deliver greater value to our clients and better outcomes for our people. It also ensures we continue to lead with credibility in an AI-enabled market, using AI responsibly, in line with our professional obligations and with expert judgement at the centre," said Virginia Briggs, CEO and Managing Partner, MinterEllison.

At its core, the Program is about building capability within MinterEllison’s teams during a time when the industry landscape is changing. “I hold a really strong belief that we need to take our own people on this journey,” Kate says. “We need to make sure we’re building their capability to have a rich, rewarding and sustainable career.”

This focus on internal development reflects a broader shift in how legal work is evolving. As Murray explains: “Using AI will soon become a fundamental part of being a lawyer, much like using word processors once was. So the goal is to effectively turn firm employees into legal engineers.”

“We’re a firm who will invest in our people, who will help them take the step into this new phase of their career,” Kate says. Reflecting on the first week of the Program, she adds: “I looked around at the end of the week and realized we now had ten legal engineers that we didn’t have seven days earlier.”

Turning lawyers into change advocates and scaling change across the firm

The design of the Program also means participants become effective change advocates within their teams. This peer-led approach is critical in building trust and driving adoption, with workflows acting as pre-built entry points that make it easier for others to get started and gain confidence.

“In terms of influence, it’s a quantum leap to have someone who really knows the work, and the people, as the voice for change,” Kate says.

“One of the really great parts of the Program was just watching the group help each other—problem solving, sharing ideas, and building on each other’s work,” she explains.

“And one of the great downstream impacts has been this cross-pollination between teams. People realize how much they have in common and how easily a workflow can be adapted to another practice.”

The result is a ripple effect, where change spreads team-by-team, accelerating adoption and new ways of working across the firm.

A foundation for the future of legal practice

Participants continue to see valuable shifts in their ways of working: “What Legora produced was essentially a complete piece of advice,” one participant said. “I could get it to a place I was comfortable sending to a client in about forty minutes instead of the two and a half hours it would have taken before.”

Another explained: “Instead of spending nine hours on a fresh claim, we’re spending one or two hours getting to a strong starting point and then focusing on the advice.”

Heather Paterson, VP APAC at Legora, reflected on the Program’s success: “It demonstrated a clear appetite for Legora across the group, with participants leaving with tangible outputs and a solid foundation for continued use. It was a big success, with high-quality workflows and strong engagement in knowledge-sharing.”

Following the success of the pilot, MinterEllison expanded the Accelerator Program into rolling cohorts, enabling more teams to participate and build on the work of previous groups.

As Kate reflects, the Program is about more than encouraging the use of Legora. It’s about “helping our people take the next step in how they work, how they serve clients, and how they build their careers.”