ILTACON2025 Recap: Beyond the AI Buzz – A Grounded Take on Legal Tech

22
Aug
2025

marjan van Ham

After another packed ILTACON week, I returned with fresh insights, a few lingering questions, and a dose of AI fatigue. Once again, artificial intelligence dominated the agenda. Its growing influence is undeniable, but the conversation risks becoming one-dimensional.

Having worked in legal tech and change management for over two decades, I was encouraged to see more recognition that success with new tools—especially AI—is less about technology and more about people, culture, and workflows.

That nuance showed up in some thoughtful sessions on adoption and governance, though the noise sometimes drowned it out.

AI Everywhere

From generative drafting and predictive research to contract lifecycle management and cybersecurity, AI was the headline act. The pace of development is striking, but foundations like business readiness, process alignment, and user trust are still catching up. That is understandable—firms are experimenting while grappling with integration.

Change Management on the Main Stage

A positive shift this year was the visibility of change management as a critical success factor, not a nice-to-have. Sessions tackled real issues: tech fatigue, cultural resistance, stakeholder alignment, and executive sponsorship.

The message resonated: technology alone doesn’t drive transformation—people do. Without a structured approach to change, even the most advanced AI tool becomes just another unused license.

A Global Perspective

One persistent narrative is that the US leads the world in legal tech adoption. It is a bigger market, with many vendors headquartered there, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Parts of Europe—particularly the Netherlands—are equally mature, sometimes ahead, with more deliberate implementation and governance. This perspective often gets overlooked amid US-centric discussions.

Exhibit Hall & Product Hype

The Exhibit Hall, as always, was high-energy. Startup Alley featured promising newcomers, and the event remains a hub for discovering new technologies and building connections. Yet the balance between genuine innovation and salesmanship varied.

People, Not Just Products

Some of the best insights came outside sessions—over coffee, in hallways, in candid conversations about leadership and adoption. Community-building felt stronger this year, with meaningful mentorship opportunities and organisations like She Breaks the Law championing diversity and inclusion—special credit to Priya Lele for uplifting voices that deserve to be heard.

Grounding Themes

ILTACON2025 reinforced that AI is here to stay, but it is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. Real progress depends on implementation, culture, and change leadership. We need to ask sharper questions: not just what is possible, but what is practical, responsible, and sustainable.

Sessions Worth Highlighting

I attended numerous sessions, but two stood out for their alignment with my work in strategy and change management.

Project Management: The Secret Edge to Strategic Planning

While much of the conference was awash with AI demos, this panel went back to fundamentals: strategy means little without structured execution.

From Reactive to Strategic PMOs

Most firm PMOs remain reactive—running projects once approved. The panel advocated for project management as a strategic function, aligning initiatives with firm-wide goals from the outset.

Prioritisation Needs Clarity, Not Templates

Maura Whelan (McDermott, Will & Schulte) stressed that prioritisation models—whether scorecards or impact/effort matrices—matter less than consistent application and leadership buy-in. Without clarity at the top, execution falters downstream.

Planning for the Unplanned

Cindy Etoh (Ropes & Gray) and Mary Nguyen (Paul Weiss) noted that roughly 20% of projects are unplanned but high-impact. Quarterly planning cycles and disciplined intake processes help, but flexibility is key.

Change Management at Portfolio Level

The most practical takeaway: treat change management as a portfolio-wide discipline, not a per-project add-on. Firms that manage change holistically see smoother communications, training, and stakeholder alignment.

This session was a timely reminder: without strong project and change management, even the best AI tools risk becoming abandoned pilots.

Resistance to Change: Change Management for the Corner Office

Julia Montgomery, always a standout, teamed up with Dr. Larry Richard, renowned for his research on lawyer personalities and change. Together, they explored why lawyers resist change and how firms can address it.

Lawyer Traits and Resistance

Dr. Richard’s research identifies common lawyer traits—high scepticism, low resilience, high autonomy, and low sociability. These serve lawyers well in practice but complicate change efforts.

The Pace of Change

Julia cited Accenture’s Pulse of Change Index: organisational change has risen 183% in four years, with tech-driven change leading the surge. Constant shifts create uncertainty, which the brain interprets as a threat—triggering defensive behaviours.

Four Resistance Drivers

They highlighted four factors behind lawyers’ heightened resistance:

• Precedent-based thinking: “We do what was done before.”
• Autonomy: “Who are you to tell me what to do?”
• Scepticism: “Prove it.”
• Resilience: “I can’t be wrong.”

Building Resilience & Avoiding Overload

Organisational resilience is essential, especially to guard against cognitive overload. Lawyers already work under high pressure; piling on rapid change risks overwhelming them. Well-designed change management protects against this by pacing, prioritising, and supporting adaptation.

Practical Takeaways

The session closed with pragmatic advice: don’t waste energy trying to “persuade the persuaders.” Instead, leverage indirect influence, drawing on Cialdini’s 7 Principles of Persuasion.

Final Reflections

ILTACON2025 captured the energy and optimism of legal tech’s future, but also its risks. AI may dominate headlines, yet actual progress depends on people, processes, and purposeful change leadership.

The most valuable sessions reminded us that project management and organisational resilience are not optional—they are the engines that turn ideas into reality. Without them, the AI boom risks stalling in unfinished pilots and unmet promises.

If we want sustainable innovation, we must keep it real: focus on what is useful, practical, and human-centred.