Firms Are Growing Revenue With AI, Not Just Cutting Hours — Live from ILTACON 2026

Episode Notes

Transcript

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:00:00 – 00:00:06]

The moment you’re able to tell a client, look, I can do this for slightly less cost, and maybe can you give me more work?

Phillip Vaden [00:00:06 – 00:00:06]

Yeah.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:00:06 – 00:00:16]

In other practice areas, right? Because you see that ROI from the client’s perspective. That’s the beauty of this technology, and that’s what I think we’re really excited about as a business here.

Phillip Vaden [00:00:26 – 00:00:34]

Hey, this is Phillip Vaden with the AI Sidebar, and we are here on site at ILTA Con, and we are speaking with Thomas, the founder of August. Thomas, thanks for being here.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:00:35 – 00:00:44]

Hi, Philip. Great to meet you. And we’re on the floor of ILTA Con where you have— it’s absolutely massive. There are so many companies here, and it’s so exciting to see everyone here.

Phillip Vaden [00:00:44 – 00:00:47]

It is incredible. The energy is really— it’s kind of infectious.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:00:48 – 00:00:49]

It is, absolutely.

Phillip Vaden [00:00:49 – 00:00:54]

So hey, I want to talk about your journey from From Alaska to New York.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:00:55 – 00:00:55]

Yeah.

Phillip Vaden [00:00:55 – 00:00:57]

Law school, legal founder.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:00:58 – 00:00:59]

I actually did not go to law school.

Phillip Vaden [00:00:59 – 00:00:59]

Not law school, that’s right.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:01:00 – 00:01:01]

But I worked at a law firm.

Phillip Vaden [00:01:01 – 00:01:02]

That’s right. Yes, yes, yes.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:01:02 – 00:01:03]

And I wanted to be a lawyer.

Phillip Vaden [00:01:03 – 00:01:03]

Yes.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:01:03 – 00:01:05]

But then I realized I wanted to do this instead.

Phillip Vaden [00:01:05 – 00:01:06]

Yes.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:01:06 – 00:01:07]

And help out lawyers.

Phillip Vaden [00:01:07 – 00:01:07]

Yeah.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:01:07 – 00:01:10]

Um, but, but I talk to lawyers all the— all of the time.

Phillip Vaden [00:01:10 – 00:01:10]

Yeah.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:01:10 – 00:01:38]

Um, and I can tell you it has been a phenomenal journey. We started in a Columbia dorm room, uh, actually about 3 and a half years ago building out this company. And we’ve seen the transition from pre-AI large language models, pre-GenAI, right before ChatGPT came out, to models which can actually do end-to-end legal work. And how do lawyers adopt this technology is the big question over the next couple of years that we’re trying to solve for.

Phillip Vaden [00:01:39 – 00:01:42]

Yeah. And now you guys have a presence not just in the United States but abroad as well.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:01:43 – 00:01:43]

Yes, we do.

Phillip Vaden [00:01:44 – 00:01:57]

Tell me about how you see the differences between the UK legal market, the US legal market, What kinds of needs are there? Do you feel like one place is adopting AI faster, or is it just kind of depends on the firm?

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:01:57 – 00:02:00]

I can tell you it depends on the firm and it depends on the country.

Phillip Vaden [00:02:00 – 00:02:00]

Okay.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:02:01 – 00:02:36]

I mean, Australia has been always really ahead in how Australian legal firms adopt technology in general. Absolutely. They have non-lawyer ownership rules there in New South Wales. In the UK, you have different ownership models as well. Yeah. And so you see UK and Australia being very far ahead, I think. But again, it depends on the firm, right? So you have firms in every spectrum of the early adopters to the followers as well. And I think that we try to partner with the 1% of firms that are really at the forefront of adopting this technology there.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:02:37 – 00:02:37]

And we learn from them.

Phillip Vaden [00:02:38 – 00:02:38]

Yeah.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:02:38 – 00:02:41]

So we’ve learned from a lot of firms in Australia. One of our first customers is there.

Phillip Vaden [00:02:41 – 00:02:42]

Okay.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:02:42 – 00:02:47]

And then we work with a lot of firms in the UK right now as well. Awesome.

Phillip Vaden [00:02:47 – 00:03:05]

Yeah, yeah, it is really incredible to see that there’s, I guess there’s something about the rules for practicing in Australia and the UK that lead people to more heavily adopt technologies, more readily adopt technologies. ‘Cause I know that there’s still some firms that they may have purchased some AI tools, but might not be using them.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:03:06 – 00:03:07]

But it’s being used.

Phillip Vaden [00:03:07 – 00:03:08]

Yeah, is like a big question.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:03:08 – 00:03:10]

I can tell you that. Yeah.

Phillip Vaden [00:03:10 – 00:03:34]

And so from your perspective, in terms of the biggest challenges with law firms and going in and bringing in a new solution, What are some things you’ve seen that you’re like, hey, if you do X, Y, or Z, it’s going to lead to success. And if you do A, B, C, you may lead to paying for a license that you’re not actually really using. So, like, whether it’s like really good change management or finding the right champion in the firm, what does that look like?

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:03:35 – 00:03:47]

Yeah, I mean, I think this is a key question, and I think that from what I can tell and from the firms that we’ve worked with, I think that it’s very clear that firms should do pilots of different technologies, right?

Phillip Vaden [00:03:47 – 00:03:48]

Yeah.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:03:48 – 00:04:00]

And really, there are so many different options out there and people need to really evaluate and test out a lot of them. And we recommend like using those champions, using those internal people who, you know, are going to be AI adopters.

Phillip Vaden [00:04:01 – 00:04:01]

Yeah.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:04:01 – 00:04:08]

To test things out, but also bring in those skeptical partners, bring in those skeptical associates as well and bring them into the fold, right?

Phillip Vaden [00:04:08 – 00:04:08]

Yeah.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:04:08 – 00:04:17]

I think that making sure that there’s buy-in from everywhere is really needed. You can’t just go straight in and say, here’s the technology for the people who love technology.

Phillip Vaden [00:04:17 – 00:04:17]

Yeah.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:04:17 – 00:04:19]

And then you leave everyone else behind, right?

Phillip Vaden [00:04:19 – 00:04:19]

Yeah.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:04:19 – 00:04:22]

And you just— I feel like this is a community effort.

Phillip Vaden [00:04:22 – 00:04:22]

Yeah.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:04:22 – 00:04:36]

And I think we haven’t done enough to make sure it’s a community effort here. And to the, to the probably demise of every other tech vendor, I do recommend pilots and I recommend longer pilots because they give you a real sense of how to, how to best use this technology.

Phillip Vaden [00:04:36 – 00:04:39]

Yeah. In day-to-day practice. Stay focused with a small group.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:04:39 – 00:04:39]

Yeah.

Phillip Vaden [00:04:39 – 00:04:50]

Get them to where they— it’s just second nature to them to use the tools. But before I moved over into my current role over at Infotrac, I worked in the government tech space and there was—

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:04:50 – 00:04:50]

I didn’t know that.

Phillip Vaden [00:04:51 – 00:05:30]

Some of it was, you know, it was just mandated by the government, so people just had to. That made change management pretty easy, right? I mean, you just, you have to do it. So, and they had to use, you know, a certain tool for their day-to-day tasks. That doesn’t really happen for law firms because, I mean, other than, you you’re going to use Microsoft Word because that’s what you have there. You’re not going to, you know, if your firm’s using Word, you’re not going to go over and be like, I’m going to use Google Docs and like, you know, forget IT. You know, you’re not going to do that. But I’ve always found this like, you know, you get that pilot group, you get them really trained up, and then you move into like kind of coaching them and setting them up so that they can sort of sell the idea to their coworkers.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:05:30 – 00:05:30]

Yeah.

Phillip Vaden [00:05:30 – 00:05:48]

And so the sales process doesn’t really stop with the pilot group. It continues to go so that you have a really sticky client. And then the best, you know, you and I go into an office building and we go to a firm, we’re like, hey, we have this really cool thing. Half of them are going to be like, I don’t know, this guy’s like, is it cool?

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:05:49 – 00:05:50]

I don’t know. He’s supposed to say that, right?

Phillip Vaden [00:05:50 – 00:06:08]

I think so. So, but having somebody in the firm being like, you know, I adopted this tool, this saved me this much time. I was able to, you know, find these 4 cases or whatever I wouldn’t have found otherwise. Turn this around 10 hours faster, etc., etc. Those stories directly from people that they work with and trust on a day-to-day basis are gold.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:06:09 – 00:06:47]

And what you’re getting at is it’s not just about that you’ve used it or that you’ve seen some return. You want to actually see that quantified. And what we do is we want to see that quantified in the revenue, top-line revenue of the firm, right? And so we track that, we work with firms to track that, and we tell We work with firms to see how can you expand top-line revenue from the client, and that’s how we measure return on investment here, right? And that could be on a year-long timescale, but you still need to measure that. If you’re not measuring that, you’re not able to understand how the firm operates and how you can— should you hire more partners? Should you go into more practice areas? Those are the types of questions that we work with firms on.

Phillip Vaden [00:06:48 – 00:07:32]

Yeah. And then, so from the, uh, from like the individual attorney side, Everybody’s, you know, like when you’re practicing in a firm, you’ve got X number of billable hours you need to hit, your bonuses are dependent on it, all of that. Are you seeing any hesitation there where people are like, I know that what I’m doing right now is going to hit my 2,200 billables for the year, my bonus is going to be huge, I’m going to stay on that track rather than I’m going to adopt these tools, like this tool is going to save me 10 hours, that’s 10 hours I’m not going to, you know, I’m not going to have billed. It’s like, what does that mean for my bonus? You know? And so am I undercutting myself by using these more efficient tools? Or are people taking the attitude of there’s plenty of work, there’s always going to be more work, so I’ll just be able to handle more cases, more matters, faster, better, et cetera.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:07:33 – 00:08:01]

This is the most common question I get from firms. It is literally the most common question. Yeah. And I can tell you, I think there’s so many different things here. One is you can use AI for non-billable work, right? And reduce that time as well. I also think legal work is inelastic. So the thing is, the truth is that the more— the lower the cost is for a lot of work, the more work you will get later on. And there’s just so much legal work out there, especially in the US.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:08:01 – 00:08:05]

Yeah. And I— there’s— we have not even scratched the surface of that.

Phillip Vaden [00:08:05 – 00:08:05]

Right.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:08:05 – 00:08:22]

And so here’s what I see with firms is that I think there’s skepticism with the uh, regard to reducing billable hours. And the truth is, it might be the exact opposite. The firms that we’ve worked with have grown very fast, um, from 100 lawyers to 400. We have case studies about that.

Phillip Vaden [00:08:22 – 00:08:22]

Wow.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:08:22 – 00:08:26]

We have case studies where people have doubled revenue, um, in a year or two.

Phillip Vaden [00:08:26 – 00:08:27]

That’s incredible.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:08:27 – 00:08:58]

With, with using really powerful AI systems. And I think that you’re just not— you’re, you’re seeing this because there’s economic forces which are not apparent at the surface. Yeah. And so if anecdotally I can tell you there are partners which the moment you’re able to tell a client, look, I can do this for slightly less cost and maybe can you give me more work in other practice areas, right? Because you see that ROI from a client’s perspective. That’s the beauty of this technology. And that’s what I think we’re really excited about as a business here.

Phillip Vaden [00:08:58 – 00:09:20]

Yeah. That’s like that land and expand with your existing clients. So, you know, you may have like some of their transactional business, but you don’t have the litigation business. hey, all of a sudden they’re getting their transactional items turned around much faster, lower cost, and then they’re, you know, then they’re like, well, why are we going somewhere else for litigation if this firm’s, you know, over here just absolutely cranking the work out?

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:09:20 – 00:09:21]

Absolutely crushing it.

Phillip Vaden [00:09:22 – 00:09:44]

Reasonable price. Yeah. Okay, awesome. Yeah, that’s a great story. So, well, man, so tell me about how you guys are, like, what the outlook for you guys is over the next few years in the United States. Are you focusing on Specific markets, specific states, or you guys just say like, we’re open to it all. We’re ready to rock and roll and expand wherever the opportunities take us.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:09:44 – 00:10:36]

I mean, I think we’ve seen a lot of firms in phase 1 of AI use. So phase 1 is like you’re using a tool and you’re using it for individual lawyers, but you’re not seeing the firm-level change in terms of business model, in terms of acquiring new clients. You’re not seeing firm-level ROI, return on investment. And phase 2 AI, which is where we sit, is firms that are interested in really seeing those firm-level changes. So AI for the firm and change management and changing business models, etc., are there. And so we’re looking at and choosing firms that are interested in moving from phase 1 to phase 2. And I think that usually they are boutiques, they are boutiques, they are firms that might see themselves in competitive pressure right now. And you’ve seen a lot of competitive pressure with a lot of firms right now.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:10:37 – 00:10:54]

A lot of hiring lateral partners. You just saw a ton of people from Wachtell go to Gibson Dunn, right? You’re seeing this time and time again. And we want to help firms in that process there. And I think the outlook that we see is, look, there’s so many opportunities. It’s not a winner-takes-all market right now.

Phillip Vaden [00:10:54 – 00:10:55]

Yeah.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:10:56 – 00:11:06]

There are just plenty of amazing client new work that can come in, and we want to help firms in that transition process there.

Phillip Vaden [00:11:07 – 00:11:13]

Awesome. Awesome. Well, man, this is— you guys have a great story and you’re just absolutely crushing it, man.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:11:13 – 00:11:13]

Thank you, Philip.

Phillip Vaden [00:11:14 – 00:11:16]

Thank you so much for stopping by and chatting with us.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:11:16 – 00:11:19]

Thank you so much, Philip. We’ve enjoyed it and hope to see you around.

Phillip Vaden [00:11:19 – 00:11:22]

Yeah, absolutely. I’m going to check back in with you here in a few months.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:11:22 – 00:11:22]

Okay. Sounds good.

Phillip Vaden [00:11:22 – 00:11:23]

We’ll discuss this more.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:11:23 – 00:11:24]

Yeah. Talk soon.

Phillip Vaden [00:11:24 – 00:11:24]

Thanks, Dan.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:11:24 – 00:11:24]

Thank you.

Phillip Vaden [00:11:24 – 00:11:25]

Yeah, absolutely.

Thomas Bueler-Faudree [00:11:25 – 00:11:26]

Take care. Thanks for having me on.

Phillip Vaden [00:11:26 – 00:11:27]

Yeah.

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