Avoiding The AI Efficiency Trap: What Biglaw Needs to Get Right (Presented by Above the Law)

Grant Hewlett, VP, Product – Firm Intelligence | Litera

Grant Hewlett is Vice President of Product for Firm Intelligence at Litera, where he focuses on how data, analytics, and emerging technology change the way law firms run as businesses. A legal strategy and operations executive, he has spent his career helping leading global law firms, premier regional boutiques, and major corporate legal teams improve financial performance, strengthen realization and billing, streamline intake and conflicts operations, and build operating models that enhance profitability, scalability, and long-term organizational health. His approach is grounded in commercial discipline and practical execution: aligning strategy with delivery so that technology investments, including AI, translate into durable performance improvements rather than isolated pilots.

• Education & Credentials

Grant completed postgraduate studies in business and data analytics at the Texas McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin (2018–2020), where he also earned a certification in data analysis and visualization (2019). He holds a Bachelor of Science in business administration and management from Florida College and attended the University of Texas at Tyler, where he played basketball. His additional credentials include the Microsoft Office Specialist certification in Excel (2015) and completion of the Dale Carnegie Course.

• Recognition & Leadership

At Deloitte Consulting, Grant received four Applause Awards in 2016, recognizing his performance on the firm’s National Engagement Economics Team, his client service and mentoring of summer analysts, his work on proposal and engagement pricing, and his creation of an innovative client deliverable. He is recognized for translating data and analytics into clear, actionable guidance that strengthens decision-making, supports business development priorities, and drives sustainable growth across litigation, corporate, and advisory practices.

• Professional Involvement

Grant advises firm and legal department leadership on how innovation and emerging technologies, including AI, intersect with operating models, governance, and talent strategy. He partners with senior partners, practice chairs, managing partners, innovation leaders, and C-suite executives on revenue lifecycle transformation, practice management, operational strategy, and legal service delivery, and he participates in the LegalTech & Innovation Network.

• Experience

Grant brings more than 15 years of experience across Big4 consulting, BigLaw operations, and ALSP leadership. Before joining Litera in April 2026, he was a Partner at Gradient Legal Consulting and spent six and a half years at Gravity Stack LLC, rising from Manager to Director of Legal Business Consulting — a period that overlapped with his role as Manager of Client Business & Advisory Solutions at Reed Smith LLP. Earlier, he served as Project & Practice Manager for Litigation and Innovation at Norton Rose Fulbright, as a Consultant with Deloitte Consulting, as an Associate Project Manager at Vinson & Elkins, and as Accounting Manager at the Lee Murphy Law Firm, and he began his career as a research and development intern at Hewlett-Packard. Having served in roles ranging from consultant and project manager to practice director and partner, he has a comprehensive view of how legal organizations function at every level.

Stephen Embry | TechLaw Crossroads

Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and writer focused on the intersection of technology, innovation, and the practice of law. He is the founder and publisher of TechLaw Crossroads, a blog devoted to examining the tension between legal technology, the law, and how lawyers actually work. A former partner at a large law firm for the better part of 30 years, Stephen built his practice as a trial lawyer in mass tort and, later, in data breach, privacy, and cyber insurance matters before turning his focus to commentary, speaking, and advisory work on how artificial intelligence and emerging technology are reshaping the legal industry. He writes frequently on the clash of cultures between tech and innovation on the one hand, and the traditional, precedent-grounded legal profession on the other.

• Education & Credentials

Stephen earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Kentucky College of Law (1975–1978), where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and the Order of the Coif.

• Recognition & Leadership

Stephen received the 2017 John Appleman Award from the Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel (FDCC) for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of the FDCC’s education goals as the inaugural chair of its Substantive Law Section on Data Breach, Privacy and Cyber Insurance. He has been selected to deliver the Opening Keynote for ABA TECHSHOW 2026 in Chicago. He is a regular panelist on LegalTech Week, a weekly roundtable of legal tech journalists discussing the most significant legal tech stories of the week, and a contributing author to Above the Law. He also writes regularly for Kentucky’s Bench & Bar Magazine and the One Legal blog, in addition to publishing TechLaw Crossroads.

• Professional Involvement

Stephen is the past chair of the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Division and previously served as vice chair of the ABA’s Legal Technology Resource Center. He is the past chair of the Data Breach, Privacy, and Cyber Insurance Section of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel (FDCC) and chair of the Kentucky Bar Association’s Law Practice Committee. He is a frequent speaker at major legal industry events, including ABA TECHSHOW, and his work has been featured on podcasts including Seyfarth Shaw’s Pioneers and Pathfinders, The Tech-Savvy Lawyer, Technically Legal, and Legal Talk Network.

• Experience

Stephen spent the better part of three decades as a partner at a large law firm, building a trial practice first in mass tort and later expanding into data breach, privacy, and cyber insurance matters. He is the co-author of Mass Tort Claims Resolution Facilities, as well as the 2016, 2017, and 2020 editions of the American Bar Association’s Legal Technology Survey Report. Today, his writing and speaking center on practical questions facing the profession, including the limits of attorney-client privilege when lawyers and clients use public generative AI tools, the Solow paradox as it applies to legal productivity, the failure of law firms to retrain their workforce or restructure compensation around AI, and the broader cultural and business-model shifts the profession must confront to stay relevant.

Bob Ambrogi | Above the Law

Robert “Bob” Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and legal journalist who has been writing and speaking about legal technology, legal practice, and legal ethics for more than two decades. He authors the award-winning blog LawSites (since 2002), writes a longtime column for Above the Law, and hosts LawNext, a leading podcast featuring the innovators driving what’s next in law. He also hosts Legaltech Week, a weekly legal tech journalists’ roundtable. In addition to his journalism, Bob represents news organizations and serves as executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association, which advocates for the First Amendment and freedom of the press.

• Education & Credentials

Bob is a 1980 graduate of Boston College Law School and is admitted to practice in Massachusetts. He has built his career at the intersection of law, journalism, and technology, becoming one of the most widely recognized voices covering legal innovation in the United States.

• Recognition & Leadership

Bob was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50 in 2011, an honor recognizing “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” In 2017, he received the Yankee Quill award for journalism from the Academy of New England Journalists and was honored by the ABA Journal as a Legal Rebels Trailblazer. His earlier honors include the 1993 President’s Award from the Massachusetts Bar Association. His LawSites blog has been repeatedly recognized among the top legal technology blogs, including induction into the ABA Journal’s inaugural Blawg 100 Hall of Fame in 2012.

• Professional Involvement

Bob is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and a past-president of the Massachusetts Bar Foundation. For 13 years, he co-hosted Lawyer2Lawyer, the longest continuously running legal podcast, produced by the Legal Talk Network, before signing off in 2018. He also wrote the Web Watch column for Law Technology News (now Legaltech News) from 1999 to 2013.

• Experience

Bob has spent more than four decades at the forefront of legal media and legal technology coverage. Earlier in his career, he served as editor-in-chief of The National Law Journal and as editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division. Before joining ALM, he was with Boston-based Lawyers Weekly Publications, where he was the founding editor of Lawyers USA and editor-in-chief of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. In 1994, he founded legal.online, the first internet newsletter for lawyers. Today, through LawSites, LawNext, Above the Law, and Legaltech Week, Bob continues to chronicle the people, products, and trends reshaping the practice of law.

SESSION 1 – Avoiding The AI Efficiency Trap: What Biglaw Needs to Get Right | 1:00pm – 2:00pm

If AI makes lawyers faster, will their firms become more profitable? Or is Biglaw in the process of automating away its own business model? ILTACON 2026 is sure to advance this conversation, and experts from Above the Law and Litera will be there to witness it all. Join ATL and Litera to hear what they discovered, particularly as it relates to whatever greater efficiency means for the business of law.

This webinar is sponsored by Litera