Copilot for Legal – AL Interview: Carina Negreanu, Microsoft

Microsoft’s new Copilot for Legal is here for the long term and eventually will be available to potentially 100,000s of lawyers worldwide, Legal Vertical leader Carina Negreanu told Artificial Lawyer in this in-depth interview with the tech giant.

In one of the first detailed interviews since Copilot for Legal launched in October, Negreanu – who joined with the team from Robin AI – tells this site about Microsoft’s big plans for the legal vertical, how they will balance the skills they develop with legal tech companies’ offerings, and where this is all heading in terms of becoming the place where lawyers spend their time.

A key aspect here is that the legal capabilities will be automatically available to those who are signed up to Copilot – which is over 30 million people globally. Naturally, only a subset of those are lawyers, but even so, this means that there is a huge potential number of lawyers, HR directors, compliance experts, procurement heads, and others who may need some legal input, who will be able to tap Copilot for Legal if they wish to.

Moreover, this Legal capability will automatically make itself known to the user if it detects legal documents, effectively becoming what Microsoft first envisaged for its genAI tools – a ‘copilot’.

Negreanu also explains that Copilot for Legal will tap both OpenAI and Anthropic models, and at present offers three core workflows, plus 20 skills, and the many connectors to a growing group of legal tech companies, including some that are supplying data – see AL story here.

She also explained that accuracy levels are a key focus area and they are seeing 70%-plus acceptance rates already for suggested review changes. That will no doubt increase in time.

Copilot for Legal will also engage with Excel, Powerpoint, and Teams, so you can do legal work that connects to a table of text collected during a contract review, for example. In short, it’s part of the wider Microsoft suite of tools that lawyers may be using every day.

Now, all of this points to one thing: centrality. I.e. creating a working environment for lawyers where you just don’t need to leave – and Negreanu refers to that benefit specifically. This is all the more impactful because of Word – the ‘base layer’, one could say, of nearly all legal work.

Let’s now go to the interview below, but AL will leave things here with one additional thought: this multi-capability move into the legal vertical is a long term one, Microsoft has dabbled with the legal world before, but this time they mean to stay. And if they stay then it seems inevitable that what is on offer will expand.

That means that although they are developing positive relationships with many legal tech ‘connectees’, those companies’ offerings will inevitably sometimes be replaceable with what Copilot for Legal offers.

You can watch the video inside the page, (and adjust playback to HD), or go direct to the AL TV Channel here.

Key points:

• Microsoft is in legal for the long term. This is a sustained investment, with ambitions to serve lawyers and legal workflows across many functions, including HR.
• Three core workflows, plus 20 skills. Launched on 15 October, Copilot for Legal centres on Q&A, review and editing, with additional skills covering areas such as obligations and playbook generation.
• Legal AI where the work happens. Once enabled, legal capabilities can activate within Copilot when relevant work is detected. Copilot Cowork supports larger-scale tasks, including reviewing multiple contracts.
• Model choice remains open. Supported models include those from OpenAI and Anthropic available in Copilot’s model picker, subject to regional restrictions.
• Partners remain part of the strategy. Microsoft is building native legal capabilities while using connectors to bring in specialist expertise. The aim is to handle more of the workflow in one place.
• Consistency matters alongside edit quality. Edit retention is in the ‘high seventies’. Microsoft also tests whether reviews using the same playbook produce consistent results. Further public benchmarking is planned.
• A huge potential user base. Many Copilot licence holders could ultimately gain access.

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Many thanks to Carina for sharing her insights. More here about Copilot for Legal.

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Legal Innovators UK is this week on Nov 4 and 5

Legal Innovators UK is this week on Nov 4 and 5 at the Minster Building near the Tower of London, and then Legal Innovators New York is on Nov 17 and 18 in Midtown at a great new venue – Quorum by Convene. Looking forward to chairing both. Going to be lots to explore together, that’s for sure!

Here are the express ticket registrations so you can get your complimentary passes super-fast.

To pick up your UK tickets, please follow the link below. Complimentary passes are for those working inside law firms and within corporate legal teams.

And for your New York tickets, please see here:

Legal Innovators New York Conference – Nov 17 + 18