AllRize’s new 2025 Legal Technology and AI Adoption Report exposes a striking gap: most U.S. law firms already run on Microsoft productivity tools, yet few have turned that foundation into a unified, secure platform for enterprise-grade AI and operational efficiency.
The report—based on a survey of nearly 100 U.S. law firms—says 89.2% of firms rely on Microsoft tools such as Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams and Microsoft Copilot, while 61% report they’ve adopted AI in some form. Yet only 2.4% claim “seamless AI integration across all applications,” a gap the authors call a missed strategic opportunity.
This disconnect matters because legal work is highly document‑centric and process‑heavy: duplicated data entry, fragmented matter management, and manual billing workflows generate recurring administrative load. AllRize argues that consolidating on a Microsoft‑native stack—Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, Azure and tenant‑grounded Copilot—can both reduce security exposure and unlock measurable time savings. The vendor’s own platform, AllRize, is positioned as a Dynamics‑native practice management suite that plugs into this ecosystem.
The vendor’s prescription—consolidate around a Dynamics/Azure/Microsoft 365 foundation and build tenant‑level governance—makes technical sense and offers a practical path toward converting pilots into firm‑wide productivity. But firms must approach consolidation with healthy skepticism: validate vendor claims, quantify your own effective rates, and design human‑in‑the‑loop processes that preserve professional responsibility.
When executed with careful governance, tenant controls and contractual rigor, Microsoft‑native consolidation can convert the current patchwork of tools into a strategic advantage—reclaiming administrative hours, improving realization, and reducing risk. The firms that move beyond point solutions to disciplined, auditable integration will define the next wave of competitive differentiation in legal services.
Source: LawSites AllRize Releases Findings from 2025 Legal Technology and AI Adoption Report
The report—based on a survey of nearly 100 U.S. law firms—says 89.2% of firms rely on Microsoft tools such as Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams and Microsoft Copilot, while 61% report they’ve adopted AI in some form. Yet only 2.4% claim “seamless AI integration across all applications,” a gap the authors call a missed strategic opportunity. This disconnect matters because legal work is highly document‑centric and process‑heavy: duplicated data entry, fragmented matter management, and manual billing workflows generate recurring administrative load. AllRize argues that consolidating on a Microsoft‑native stack—Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, Azure and tenant‑grounded Copilot—can both reduce security exposure and unlock measurable time savings. The vendor’s own platform, AllRize, is positioned as a Dynamics‑native practice management suite that plugs into this ecosystem.
What the report actually found — headline takeaways
- Microsoft is the de facto baseline. Nearly nine in ten law firms reportedly use Microsoft productivity apps, establishing a widespread common platform on which firms could standardize AI and workflow automation.
- Fragmentation persists. Firms use an average of 5–10 different applications for operations, and only 41.2% are satisfied with how those applications work together—evidence that point solutions remain siloed and integration efforts lag.
- AI adoption is uneven and often unmanaged. The report highlights that 38.8% of firms have no AI integration with core applications, and another 31.8% report only limited integration—conditions that encourage shadow‑IT and unmanaged tool downloads.
- Administrative time is costly. The report estimates that nearly 40% of legal professionals’ time is spent on administrative tasks that could be automated, and using an average billable rate “of more than $300/hour” creates a large, quantifiable cost of inefficiency. The $300+ average ballpark aligns with broader industry reporting showing significant billing‑rate inflation at many firms in 2024–2025.
Why this matters: business impact and the numbers behind the claims
The AllRize report ties fragmented tooling and weak integration to real dollars and human hours. The principal chain of logic runs like this:- Many lawyers bill at rates that exceed $300/hour in markets and practices where partner and senior associate rates are high. Public reporting and industry surveys corroborate that billing rates rose significantly in 2024 and remained elevated into 2025.
- If 30–40% of professional time is consumed by administrative, non‑billable tasks that can be automated or streamlined, then even modest reductions in those tasks translate to significant recoverable capacity—more billable time or fewer support headcount hours.
- Without integration, AI pilots deliver tactical wins (summaries, first drafts, clause extraction) but fail to change end‑to‑end workflows—limiting ROI to a handful of users rather than firm‑wide productivity gains.
The core weaknesses the report highlights
1. Fragmented application landscape
Most firms mix DMS, practice management, billing, calendaring and niche specialist tools. That heterogeneity:- Drives duplicate entry and reconciliation work.
- Prevents trigger‑based automation (e.g., a signed engagement form that automatically creates a matter, billing code and document library).
- Forces users to context‑switch, increasing cognitive load and error rates.
2. Shadow AI and unmanaged tooling
When enterprise integration is missing, attorneys and staff adopt consumer or point AI tools to solve immediate pain points. The report labels this “shadow AI”—a source of both productivity experimentation and security risk.- Unvetted tools can exfiltrate matter text or client PII into vendor models.
- Lack of centralized logging makes eDiscovery and incident response difficult.
3. Resistance to change and governance gaps
The largest non‑technical obstacle cited was resistance to change (52.9%), while 33.3% pointed to security concerns. Those numbers suggest that technology choices must be accompanied by people programs: training, change management and defensible governance.Strengths in AllRize’s framing — what’s persuasive
- Platform leverage argument is sound. When a single productivity vendor (Microsoft) dominates across a vertical, integration and security controls can be deployed at tenant level (DLP, Conditional Access, Sentinel logging), giving firms technical hooks to enable safe, auditable AI usage. That technical possibility is real and has been the foundation of many successful Copilot rollouts.
- Operational pain points are targeted. The report prioritizes document management, case/matter management and billing—areas where automation and AI have shown measurable returns in other studies and pilots. Focusing pilots on these areas yields early wins and a defensible governance footprint.
- Smaller firms can gain disproportionate benefit. The data show smaller firms (under 50 employees) are agile adopters; consolidating on a Microsoft stack gives them enterprise‑grade capabilities without the cost of bespoke infrastructure. That democratization is a real market dynamic worth emphasizing.
Risks, blind spots and claims that need caution
While the report’s narrative is persuasive, several claims require careful qualification or additional evidence:- Sampling limitations. The survey size—“nearly 100” firms—produces directionally useful signals but cannot by itself prove industry‑wide percentages. Treat headline percentages as indicative and verify with internal telemetry before acting.
- Cost calculations hinge on average billable rate. The “more than $300/hour” figure is plausible for many U.S. practices in 2024–2025, especially mid‑market and Big Law, but rate distributions vary widely by practice area and geography. Firms should compute their own effective hourly rates (net of realization and write‑offs) before extrapolating cost‑savings claims. Public reporting confirms widespread billing rate increases in 2024, but the median or mean rate will differ by cohort.
- Vendor positioning and conflict of interest. AllRize is an entrant into the market offering a Dynamics‑native practice management system; the report’s prescription to consolidate on Microsoft aligns with AllRize’s go‑to‑market positioning. That alignment does not invalidate the core technical argument but should prompt buyers to include independent security, contract and procurement checks.
- Operational overhead of consolidation. Moving to a single vendor stack simplifies some integrations but creates other risks: vendor lock‑in, migration complexity with legacy DMS repositories, and governance of tenant‑level controls across multiple offices or jurisdictions. The report briefly acknowledges customization vs. upgradeability tradeoffs but buyers should quantify migration costs explicitly.
- Hallucinations and professional responsibility. Generative AI can fabricate citations or misstate authorities. The legal profession’s duty of competence and confidentiality means that human verification remains essential for any AI‑produced legal conclusions. The report should be read as a call for integrated AI governance rather than a push to remove human oversight.
How firms should evaluate the opportunity — a practical roadmap
Consolidation around an existing Microsoft stack is attractive but must be executed methodically. Recommended phased approach:- Identify one high‑value, low‑risk workflow to pilot (document intake, deposition transcript summarization, or first‑draft client letters).
- Assemble a cross‑functional steering group: partner lead, IT/security, procurement, and a super‑user or knowledge‑management lead.
- Define KPIs up front: time saved per matter, error rates, time to invoice, and compliance/audit metrics.
- Run a 6–8 week sandbox with redacted or synthetic matter data to validate: logs exportability, DLP behavior, SSO and offboarding, and vendor contractual promises (no‑retrain, exportable logs, SOC/ISO attestations).
- Measure outcomes, iterate on process controls (human‑in‑the‑loop verification checklists), and plan a staggered rollout tied to training and internal CLE credits.
- Negotiate vendor terms that include auditability, deletion/egress guarantees, and incident response SLAs before any production access to matter data.
Technical and governance essentials for Microsoft‑centric deployments
- Tenant grounding for Copilot: Ensure Copilot and any tenant‑hosted model features are configured with the firm’s tenant controls and opt‑out/opt‑in settings for model training.
- Endpoint and Content DLP: Configure Microsoft Endpoint DLP and sensitive label‑based protections for matter repositories (SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive).
- Centralized logging and eDiscovery readiness: Send activity to a SIEM and maintain exportable logs for prompts/responses where AI interacts with matter data.
- RBAC and conditional access: Apply least‑privilege and device posture checks before allowing agentic actions that access matter content.
- Procurement redlines: Require exportable logs, no default retraining, SSO/offboarding support, encryption attestations, and SOC 2/ISO certifications.
Where AI will likely show immediate ROI in law firms
- Document management: automated classification, metadata capture and precedent retrieval reduce time spent searching and filing. The report ranks this the top priority for firms.
- Case/matter management: automatic matter creation, conflict checks and task automation convert intake events into billable workflows.
- Billing and time capture: passive time capture and suggested time entries, plus automated invoice assembly, reduce leakage and accelerate realization.
Recommendations for law firm leaders and IT decision‑makers
- Treat AI adoption as an enterprise program, not a collection of one‑off tools. Executive sponsorship and measurable targets turn pilots into durable capabilities.
- Prioritize vendor commitments in contracts: exportable logs, no‑retrain clauses, data residency, and SOC/ISO attestations. Never accept “we’ll add SSO later.”
- Start with small, measurable pilots and require human verification for any output that could be relied upon or filed. Build the verification process into day‑one training.
- Measure the real effective hourly rate and realization for your firm (not list rates) before extrapolating the dollar value of time savings. Public market trends support a $300+ average in many practice areas, but firm‑level metrics are the only reliable basis for ROI calculations.
- Use tenant‑level Microsoft controls as technical foundation but supplement with contractual and process safeguards; the platform reduces friction but does not replace procurement discipline.
What buyers should watch for in vendors’ marketing claims
- Avoid vendors that refuse to provide exportable logs or decline to put no‑retrain commitments in writing.
- Demand to see proof of DLP integration with Microsoft 365 and real examples of tenant‑grounded Copilot deployments.
- Insist on independent security attestations (SOC 2/ISO 27001) and concrete SLAs for incident notification and data egress.
- Ask for measurable customer case studies (before/after KPIs) rather than PR claims. If a vendor quotes a percentage improvement, ask for the pilot design and metrics used.
Conclusion
AllRize’s 2025 report drops a clarifying thesis into the middle of a noisy legal‑tech debate: law firms already possess a common productivity base—the Microsoft stack—that could serve as the backbone for secure, auditable, and highly productive AI deployments. The core strategic distinction for firms is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how to integrate and govern it across the practice.The vendor’s prescription—consolidate around a Dynamics/Azure/Microsoft 365 foundation and build tenant‑level governance—makes technical sense and offers a practical path toward converting pilots into firm‑wide productivity. But firms must approach consolidation with healthy skepticism: validate vendor claims, quantify your own effective rates, and design human‑in‑the‑loop processes that preserve professional responsibility.
When executed with careful governance, tenant controls and contractual rigor, Microsoft‑native consolidation can convert the current patchwork of tools into a strategic advantage—reclaiming administrative hours, improving realization, and reducing risk. The firms that move beyond point solutions to disciplined, auditable integration will define the next wave of competitive differentiation in legal services.
Source: LawSites AllRize Releases Findings from 2025 Legal Technology and AI Adoption Report