The AI-Powered Paralegal: Practical Tools, Smart Prompts, and Real-World Workflow Transformation

Marisa Rua | Best Era, LLC

Marisa Rua is passionate about training paralegals and changing the future of the legal profession. With over a decade of experience as a personal injury paralegal, she understands firsthand the challenges that come from a lack of structured training and support.

Before joining Best Era, Marisa served as Lead Paralegal Trainer at Connecticut Trial Firm, where she developed onboarding systems and training programs designed to help new paralegals thrive from day one. She continues to stay on the cutting edge of personal injury law as the sole paralegal for Ryan McKeen at McKeen Law Firm, ensuring every case is handled with precision and care.

Marisa has shared her expertise on several legal industry podcasts and at professional events, including the Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association’s Annual Conference. Today, through her work at Best Era, she’s on a mission to redefine how law firms train and empower their paralegals by creating confident, capable professionals who strengthen teams, improve client outcomes, and raise the standard for the entire legal field.

Jasmine Lo | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Inc

Jasmine Lo is the Lead Intellectual Property Paralegal at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute with 8+ years in IP, where she oversees a large global IP asset portfolio and manages a team of four, driving metrics-led IP operations, SOPs, vendor management, and workflow automation to improve speed, quality, and cost.

Jasmine is currently pursuing a part-time MBA at Babson College, concentrating in Business Analytics and Machine Learning, and is passionate about applying AI-enabled operations while being an advocate for responsible AI usage.

Session I – Leveraging AI in Your Daily Practice | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

• What GenAI tools I use in my own work that can be translated into any paralegal practices
• How to prompt (crediting a Google Coursera course)
• Examples of how I use GenAI tools in my legal search work that can be translated into any paralegal practices

Break | 1:00pm – 1:10pm

Session II – AI-Powered Paralegals: From Task “Doers” to Process Optimizers | 1:10pm – 2:10pm

• Understanding the shift
• What it means to be AI-powered
• Improving workflows with AI
• Becoming a process optimizer in your firm