How Addleshaw Goddard became an innovation leader: Kerry Westland on AI, internal tools and the future of law
AG's innovation head on the firm's legal tech and innovation strategy.
Contents
When Kerry Westland joined Addleshaw Goddard in 2010 as a paralegal, the role of head of innovation hardly existed at most law firms. 15 years later, she now leads an innovation group of more than 70 people and is shaping the firm’s strategy around legal tech, client service delivery and AI adoption.
In an interview for The Non-Billable Podcast, Westland describes the firm’s “buy, build and meld” approach to legal tech, how AG’s in-house tool AGPT is accelerating adoption across the firm and why innovation is as much about rethinking the work lawyers do as it is about tools.
Listen to the full-length interview on the podcast. Episode page with links here.
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From paralegal to head of innovation
Westland’s path into legal tech wasn’t planned.
Starting as one of the first 11 hires in AG’s transaction services team - now a 200-person unit - early exposure to large-scale legal operations work gave her front-row access to where processes broke down.
The tipping point came while managing a contract review project for a major client: "We couldn’t do it without a platform any longer, without some technology to manage it", she recalls. That led her to a weekend spent Googling how to lock records in Apple’s FileMaker database software.
That curiosity to solve problems would shape her future. "Suddenly everyone was like, ‘You’re the tech person’", she laughs. The identity stuck. From early experiments with tools like HighQ to building client-facing case management platforms, her work evolved into a formal innovation unit by 2017, and into a fully-fledged innovation group not long after which now counts around 70 people as members.
Defining innovation at AG
For Westland, innovation isn’t limited to flashy new software. It’s any idea that changes how lawyers work or how legal services are delivered.
"It’s not just tech", she says. It’s also about how lawyers advise on innovative mandates, questioning why things are done in certain ways and thinking about new service models.
That mindset shows up in how AG structures its innovation strategy. She outlines four pillars that define her team’s work:
- Improving how lawyers work day to day
- Managing large, unusual projects
- Supporting clients on their own technology journey
- Building repeatable, tech-driven legal services
What ties those together is the output. "We try not to lead with the technology", she says. "Sometimes the technology drives behaviours. Sometimes behaviours drive the technology that you're looking at."
A vendor-agnostic tech stack
One of the biggest shifts in Westland’s thinking over the past decade has been letting go of the idea that a single platform can do everything.
The "panacea" was always one end-to-end platform with a single log-in that could do everything, she says. But new "point solutions" (that’s the tech lingo) focusing on very specific use cases from what she calls "really good companies" have made her change her mind.
A single M&A deal might require diligence, document automation, Q&A management and live collaboration - often all at once and by different teams.
Instead, AG has adopted more of a vendor-agnostic approach - combining point solutions like Legatics for deal management, Office & Dragons for document automation and StructureFlow for charts and timelines.
The "build, buy, and meld" model allows Westland’s team to customise technology to specific practice areas and workflows - while maintaining oversight of how the firm’s stack evolves.
The approach is also shaped by experimentation. AG typically rolls out new tools to small user groups, collects feedback and then scales gradually. This iterative loop includes regular roadmap meetings with vendors, ensuring lawyer feedback is fed directly into product updates.
"Tiny things can block adoption", Westland says. "It could be something as small as amending numbering in a CP checklist - if it doesn’t work, people won’t use the tool."
AG has also embraced rethinking the application of existing tools in unexpected ways.
Tools like Bundledocs, initially bought for litigation, have found new life among trainees in other seats using it to manage big contracts and schedules. Similarly, Legatics - originally designed for managing conditions precedent in banking deals - is now used more widely for things like document lists and issue tracking.
Tiny things can block adoption. It could be something as small as amending numbering in a CP checklist - if it doesn’t work, people won’t use the tool.
AGPT: the firm’s in-house AI tool
Of all the tools AG uses, its internally developed AI assistant - AGPT - is arguably the most important.
Built on the firm’s own Azure instance using OpenAI models, AGPT has seen rapid adoption since launch. "The adoption has been mind-blowing", says Westland. "85% percent of the firm has used it. We’re seeing 2,000 prompts a day."
Lawyers across the firm are using AGPT for a wide range of tasks - from reviewing and summarising documents, to refining legal drafting and translating text.
What’s made AGPT particularly powerful, she says, is how it’s powered experimentation. Rather than following the traditional legal tech model - define a problem, secure budget and pilot - AGPT flipped the process: give people access first, then look at what problems they’re choosing to solve.
"You'll have the pensions team and the tax team experimenting with stuff that was never at that volume and scale that it would make sense. But with something like AGPT, they can create their prompt libraries or the GPT that they want to use for it in a way that you would never have been able to do before."
The adoption of AGPT has been mind-blowing.
The ROI conversation (and its limits)
"Honestly, I think it's really hard", Westland concedes when it comes to thinking about the return on investment from some of these tools.
Time savings is naturally one way to look at, but they don’t tell the whole story. Westland says it’s also an unavoidable cost of doing business at the moment, "There is an expectation you will have these tools that your lawyers will want to use. And if you don't have that tool, what's that saying for staff retention and what you're doing?"
The other thing to think about is the way tech is driving work that firms would not have been able to do previously - because clients would never have paid for it to be done manually. "It's hard to really calculate an ROI on it because you say: well, we would never have done this work. Or you could say that it would have cost ‘X’ manually, but no one would ever have paid the 'X’ number in the first place."
The firm does sometimes pass costs on to clients, particularly where it’s knitting tools together for particular projects. "There is a cost of putting 10,000 contracts through an AI tool", Westland says. But much of the tooling, including AGPT, is absorbed into general delivery.
There is an expectation you will have these tools that your lawyers will want to use. And if you don't, what's that saying for staff retention and what you're doing?
Why productisation isn’t the goal
While some firms are moving towards selling internal tools as SaaS products, AG has held back. "We’re a law firm, not a technology company", says Westland. "We've pivoted away from it and we're doing it more on a legal services underpinned by technology basis."
Still, some AG tools are available on subscription, including a legal front door platform and a property management tool. But the emphasis remains: AG sells legal services, not software.
What the future looks like
Ask Westland what a law firm might look like in 2035, and she won’t give you a clean blueprint - but she does have a clear sense of the direction of travel.
"Some of what we thought would take five or ten years is happening now." GenAI tools will become so embedded in day-to-day workflows, she predicts, that they’ll soon be as taken for granted as Word or email.
Westland doesn’t think the traditional law firm people pyramid will collapse. If anything, she thinks demand for legal services will grow as technology unlocks new types of work that were previously too costly or too complex to justify.
"There’s a huge amount of untapped work that just wasn’t economical before", she says.
For junior lawyers, her advice is clear: don’t fear AI. Embrace it. Be curious. "The role of a junior lawyer could look different, and that should be something we embrace", Westland says, noting that firms themselves are bigger than they’ve ever been.
"At the moment, you're using GenAI tools to do the stuff you did before. But what is it allowing that will be coming that we haven't even thought about yet? I think if you can be part of that wave as a junior lawyer, that sounds really exciting. So I think there's lots of opportunity."
What is AI allowing that will be coming that we haven't even thought about yet? I think if you can be part of that wave as a junior lawyer, that sounds really exciting.
Law Firm | Trainee First Year | Trainee Second Year | Newly Qualified (NQ) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Addleshaw Goddard | £52,000 | £56,000 | £100,000 |
| Akin Gump | £60,000 | £65,000 | £174,418 |
| A&O Shearman | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Ashurst | £52,000 | £57,000 | £125,000 |
| Baker McKenzie | £56,000 | £61,000 | £140,000 |
| Bird & Bird | £47,000 | £52,000 | £98,000 |
| Bristows | £46,000 | £50,000 | £88,000 |
| Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner | £50,000 | £55,000 | £105,000 |
| Burges Salmon | £47,000 | £49,000 | £72,000 |
| Charles Russell Speechlys | £50,000 | £53,000 | £88,000 |
| Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton | £57,500 | £62,500 | £164,500 |
| Clifford Chance | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Clyde & Co | £47,000 | £49,500 | £85,000 |
| CMS | £50,000 | £55,000 | £110,000 |
| Cooley | £55,000 | £60,000 | £157,000 |
| Davis Polk | £65,000 | £70,000 | £170,000 |
| Debevoise | £55,000 | £60,000 | £173,000 |
| Dechert | £55,000 | £61,000 | £165,000 |
| Dentons | £50,000 | £54,000 | £100,000 |
| DLA Piper | £50,000 | £55,000 | £110,000 |
| Eversheds Sutherland | £46,000 | £50,000 | £100,000 |
| Farrer & Co | £47,000 | £49,000 | £88,000 |
| Fieldfisher | £48,500 | £52,000 | £95,000 |
| Freshfields | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Fried Frank | £55,000 | £60,000 | £175,000 |
| Gibson Dunn | £60,000 | £65,000 | £180,000 |
| Goodwin Procter | £55,000 | £60,000 | £175,000 |
| Gowling WLG | £48,500 | £53,500 | £98,000 |
| Herbert Smith Freehills | £56,000 | £61,000 | £135,000 |
| HFW | £50,000 | £54,000 | £100,000 |
| Hill Dickinson | £43,000 | £45,000 | £80,000 |
| Hogan Lovells | £56,000 | £61,000 | £140,000 |
| Irwin Mitchell | £43,000 | £45,000 | £76,000 |
| Jones Day | £56,000 | £65,000 | £160,000 |
| K&L Gates | £50,000 | £55,000 | £115,000 |
| Kennedys | £43,000 | £46,000 | £85,000 |
| King & Spalding | £55,000 | £60,000 | £165,000 |
| Kirkland & Ellis | £60,000 | £65,000 | £174,418 |
| Latham & Watkins | £60,000 | £65,000 | £174,418 |
| Linklaters | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Macfarlanes | £56,000 | £61,000 | £140,000 |
| Mayer Brown | £55,000 | £60,000 | £135,000 |
| McDermott Will & Emery | £65,000 | £70,000 | £174,418 |
| Milbank | £65,000 | £70,000 | £174,418 |
| Mills & Reeve | £45,000 | £47,000 | £82,000 |
| Mischon de Reya | £47,500 | £52,500 | £95,000 |
| Norton Rose Fulbright | £50,000 | £55,000 | £135,000 |
| Orrick | £55,000 | £60,000 | £160,000 |
| Osborne Clarke | £54,500 | £56,000 | £94,000 |
| Paul Hastings | £60,000 | £68,000 | £173,000 |
| Paul Weiss | £55,000 | £60,000 | £180,000 |
| Penningtons Manches Cooper | £48,000 | £50,000 | £83,000 |
| Pinsent Masons | £49,500 | £54,000 | £97,000 |
| Quinn Emanuel | n/a | n/a | £180,000 |
| Reed Smith | £50,000 | £55,000 | £125,000 |
| Ropes & Gray | £60,000 | £65,000 | £165,000 |
| RPC | £46,000 | £50,000 | £90,000 |
| Shoosmiths | £43,000 | £45,000 | £97,000 |
| Sidley Austin | £60,000 | £65,000 | £175,000 |
| Simmons & Simmons | £52,000 | £57,000 | £120,000 |
| Skadden | £58,000 | £63,000 | £173,000 |
| Slaughter and May | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Squire Patton Boggs | £47,000 | £50,000 | £110,000 |
| Stephenson Harwood | £50,000 | £55,000 | £100,000 |
| Sullivan & Cromwell | £65,000 | £70,000 | £174,418 |
| Taylor Wessing | £50,000 | £55,000 | £115,000 |
| TLT | £44,000 | £47,500 | £85,000 |
| Travers Smith | £54,000 | £59,000 | £120,000 |
| Trowers & Hamlins | £45,000 | £49,000 | £80,000 |
| Vinson & Elkins | £60,000 | £65,000 | £173,077 |
| Watson Farley & Williams | £50,000 | £55,000 | £102,000 |
| Weightmans | £34,000 | £36,000 | £70,000 |
| Weil Gotshal & Manges | £60,000 | £65,000 | £170,000 |
| White & Case | £62,000 | £67,000 | £175,000 |
| Willkie Farr & Gallagher | £60,000 | £65,000 | £170,000 |
| Withers | £47,000 | £52,000 | £95,000 |
| Womble Bond Dickinson | £43,000 | £45,000 | £80,000 |
Rank | Law Firm | Revenue | Profit per Equity Partner (PEP) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | DLA Piper* | £3,010,000,000 | £2,400,000 |
| 2 | Clifford Chance | £2,300,000,000 | £2,040,000 |
| 3 | A&O Shearman | £2,200,000,000 | £2,200,000 |
| 4 | Hogan Lovells | £2,150,000,000 | £2,200,000 |
| 5 | Freshfields | £2,120,000,000 | Not disclosed |
| 6 | Linklaters | £2,100,000,000 | £1,900,000 |
| 7 | Norton Rose Fulbright* | £1,800,000,000 | £1,100,000 |
| 8 | CMS** | £1,620,000,000 | Not disclosed |
| 9 | Herbert Smith Freehills | £1,300,000,000 | £1,300,000 |
| 10 | Ashurst | £961,000,000 | £1,300,000 |
| 11 | Clyde & Co | £844,000,000 | £739,000 |
| 12 | Eversheds Sutherland | £749,000,000 | £1,300,000 |
| 13 | BCLP* | £661,000,000 | £748,000 |
| 14 | Pinsent Masons | £649,000,000 | £793,000 |
| 15 | Slaughter and May*** | £625,000,000 | Not disclosed |
| 16 | Simmons & Simmons | £574,000,000 | £1,076,000 |
| 17 | Bird & Bird** | £545,000,000 | £696,000 |
| 18 | Addleshaw Goddard | £495,000,000 | Not disclosed |
| 19 | Taylor Wessing | £480,000,000 | £915,000*** |
| 20 | Osborne Clarke** | £456,000,000 | £771,000 |
| 21 | Womble Bond Dickinson | £448,000,000 | £556,000 |
| 22 | DWF | £435,000,000 | Not disclosed |
| 23 | Fieldfisher | £407,000,000 | £966,000 |
| 24 | Kennedys | £384,000,000 | Not disclosed |
| 25 | DAC Beachcroft | £325,000,000 | £700,000 |
What do City lawyers actually do each day?
For a closer look at the day-to-day of some of the most common types of lawyers working in corporate law firms, explore our lawyer job profiles:
This is a condensed version of our full length interview with Kerry Westland on The Non-Billable Podcast. View the episode page here.
| Firm | London office since | Known for in London |
|---|---|---|
| Baker McKenzie | 1961 | Finance, capital markets, TMT |
| Davis Polk | 1972 | Leveraged finance, corporate/M&A |
| Gibson Dunn | 1979 | Private equity, arbitration, energy, resources and infrastructure |
| Goodwin | 2008 | Private equity, funds, life sciences |
| Kirkland & Ellis | 1994 | Private equity, funds, restructuring |
| Latham & Watkins | 1990 | Finance, private equity, capital markets |
| Milbank | 1979 | Finance, capital markets, energy, resources and infrastructure |
| Paul Hastings | 1997 | Leveraged finance, structured finance, infrastructure |
| Paul Weiss | 2001 | Private equity, leveraged finance |
| Quinn Emanuel | 2008 | Litigation |
| Sidley Austin | 1974 | Leveraged finance, capital markets, corporate/M&A |
| Simpson Thacher | 1978 | Leveraged finance, private equity, funds |
| Skadden | 1988 | Finance, corporate/M&A, arbitration |
| Weil | 1996 | Restructuring, private equity, leverage finance |
| White & Case | 1971 | Capital markets, arbitration, energy, resources and infrastructure |
| Law firm | Type | First-year salary |
|---|---|---|
| White & Case | US firm | £32,000 |
| Stephenson Harwood | International | £30,000 |
| A&O Shearman | Magic Circle | £28,000 |
| Charles Russell Speechlys | International | £28,000 |
| Freshfields | Magic Circle | £28,000 |
| Herbert Smith Freehills | Silver Circle | £28,000 |
| Hogan Lovells | International | £28,000 |
| Linklaters | Magic Circle | £28,000 |
| Mishcon de Reya | International | £28,000 |
| Norton Rose Fulbright | International | £28,000 |
Law Firm | Trainee First Year | Trainee Second Year | Newly Qualified (NQ) |
|---|---|---|---|
| A&O Shearman | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Clifford Chance | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Linklaters | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Slaughter and May | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
Law Firm | Trainee First Year | Trainee Second Year | Newly Qualified (NQ) |
|---|---|---|---|
| A&O Shearman | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Clifford Chance | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Linklaters | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
| Slaughter and May | £56,000 | £61,000 | £150,000 |
Law Firm | Trainee First Year | Trainee Second Year | Newly Qualified (NQ) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ashurst | £52,000 | £57,000 | £125,000 |
| Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner | £50,000 | £55,000 | £105,000 |
| Herbert Smith Freehills | £56,000 | £61,000 | £135,000 |
| Macfarlanes | £56,000 | £61,000 | £140,000 |
| Travers Smith | £54,000 | £59,000 | £120,000 |
| Firm | Merger year | Known for in London |
|---|---|---|
| BCLP | 2018 | Real estate, corporate/M&A, litigation |
| DLA Piper | 2005 | Corporate/M&A, real estate, energy, resources and infrastructure |
| Eversheds Sutherland | 2017 | Corporate/M&A, finance |
| Hogan Lovells | 2011 | Litigation, regulation, finance |
| Mayer Brown | 2002 | Finance, capital markets, real estate |
| Norton Rose Fulbright | 2013 | Energy, resources and infrastructure, insurance, finance |
| Reed Smith | 2007 | Shipping, finance, TMT |
| Squire Patton Boggs | 2011 | Corporate/M&A, pensions, TMT |
Law Firm | Trainee First Year | Trainee Second Year | Newly Qualified (NQ) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ashurst | £52,000 | £57,000 | £125,000 |
| Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner | £50,000 | £55,000 | £105,000 |
| Herbert Smith Freehills | £56,000 | £61,000 | £135,000 |
| Macfarlanes | £56,000 | £61,000 | £140,000 |
| Travers Smith | £54,000 | £59,000 | £120,000 |
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