Four ways to use legal tech without losing the human touch by Lily Schurra

Senior Commercial Counsel Lily Schurra’s journey into in-house legal wasn’t as traditional as many of our other Legal Disruptors. She started with an English Literature degree, drawn to the power of words and the way writing could shape meaning, and then went on to complete a Doctor of Law, when she first knew she wanted to work in contracts.

Her first role in law was at an insurance firm, before she moved into commercial contracts at Dun & Bradstreet, where she combined her passion for contracts with a growing interest in data, analytics and legal operations.

There, Lily first explored the idea of contracts as data – analyzing them, making them usable and turning insights into action, all while building the legal operations function. Since then, she’s taken on roles that blend legal counsel, legal operations and innovation, including founding her own consultancy in legal tech.

It’s this different journey and Lily’s blend of roles and innovation that has given her a curious mindset and a proactive approach to problem-solving and using technology thoughtfully.  

Are you interested in doing the same? Here are four lessons Lily has learned along the way.

Lesson 1: Why contracts are the best place to start

For Lily, curiosity and proactive problem-solving only matter if they translate into action. When it comes to legal transformation, she always starts with a practical question: where can you make a meaningful impact quickly? She says contracts are one of the most obvious places.

“Contracts are where legal tech has really had the most power so far.”

They’re high-volume, business-critical and closely tied to revenue – and small improvements can have a huge impact, which most importantly, is an easy thing to explain to stakeholders.

“We changed our response time from three days to two days, which helps us close deals faster. You can show that value very quickly.”

Lily’s quick to point out that her own early steps were far from sophisticated, so you don’t need a perfectly implemented platform or years of planning. Her first foray into the data space was SharePoint and manual data tracking, which already unlocked value for her team: “That changed our lives as a legal team.”

The point is rarely about how advanced the solution is, but more about the fact you’re making progress and learning what information actually changes how you work.

Lesson 2: You can’t automate your way out of chaos

However, if teams rush into buying a tech solution without understanding their processes first, then chaos can quickly become even more chaos.

“I think a lot of legal teams end up in an unhelpful cycle where they get some big budget, go buy something without really knowing why and without analyzing that process first. Then they’re dissatisfied with it and they’re not sure why.”

Lily shared a story from her consulting days, when she worked with a business who had no processes in place for how they managed their contracts.

“They had hundreds of lawyers, who all kind of negotiated in their own way.”

Their goal was consistency, but instead of defining standards or playbooks, the team wanted AI to analyze past contracts and then create a new contract for them.

For Lily, this wouldn’t solve the issue. The business would still need a person to decide what the standard or fallback positions would need to be. AI couldn’t make this decision for them, therefore it actually wasn’t going to solve any problems. Without agreement on how decisions should be made, technology simply surfaced the inconsistency already there, and the hard work still had to be done by a human.

“If you don’t know the right process for doing things, you can’t automate that process in a way that’s effective.”

Lesson 3: Efficiency matters, but human judgment is still the real value

Human judgment doesn’t just stop at the system level or when the process is clear. Once the foundations are in place, human judgment shows up in a different way – in the small, everyday decisions. Lily uses NDAs as an example of this.

“When I look at an NDA, I take no more than five minutes. I look for the information I need to look for, and either make changes or give a go ahead. I’ve trained tech to analyze the way I do and give me an output which I then verify.”

By training AI to analyze the way she does, her five-minute review time drops to three minutes, and the verification stays firmly in her hands. Lily says that on its own, two minutes doesn’t sound transformative, but multiplied over months, it adds up and creates space for work that can’t be automated.  

Once you have those small time savings, you then have time to apply more time to the moments where instinct matters – a Slack message, half-formed concern, a small red flag:

“I find some of the most important work I do to be that gut instinct work. After years of experience, you can address those little red flags or yellow flags and stop a risk from happening before it happens. That’s something AI can’t do.”

Lesson 4: AI works best as a thinking partner

For Lily, the most exciting use of AI isn’t about automating legal work or replacing judgment. It’s about using technology to support thinking, brainstorming and sense checks. She shared a story from a previous role where her team had budget and appetite to implement tech, but no immediate access to internal IT support.

“We were ready to implement tech, but we were told we had nine months to wait because there were other projects on the horizon. That’s especially painful when you can’t clearly explain where you’re stuck or what you actually need help with.”

At the time, Lily didn’t have a clear way to scope or articulate those needs. Instead of waiting, she turned to AI tools to help her work through her thinking.

“I do this nearly every day. I tell AI what I want, talk about a gut feeling, explain that I don’t know how to turn it into something scalable and ask it to work through that with me.”

Used this way, AI becomes a safe space and somewhere to ask the “stupid” questions. It helps Lily move from a vague sense that something isn’t working to a clearer understanding of what she can solve herself and where she genuinely needs support.

“I use AI as if I’m talking to a colleague – asking if I can get a gut check, or if we can brainstorm. It helps me figure out what I don’t know and what I can solve on my own.”

To Lily, the real promise of AI isn’t automation for automation’s sake, but more about empowerment and how technology amplifies the professional skills and critical thinking that lawyers already bring to the table.

To learn more about how Lily’s embedding AI and tech into her everyday practices, follow her on LinkedIn and engage in the knowledge she actively shares with her network.

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