Decades in Law. No Interest in AI Theater.
I’m Greg Yates, a former Am Law 100 equity partner at Steptoe and Seyfarth Shaw, former NYC office managing partner, longtime adviser to lawyers, and founder of Actionable AI.
Today, based in Daytona Beach, I work with Florida law firms with fewer than 25 lawyers to improve work using AI capabilities inside software they already own, including Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Lexis+ with Protégé and Lexis Create+.
I understand the practice before I touch the process.
AI consultants tend to understand technology. Lawyers tend to understand legal work. As a former Big Law partner turned AI consultant, I work the ground in the middle.
I spent decades dealing with clients, documents, deadlines, negotiations, partner expectations, staff handoffs, billing pressure, professional responsibility, and the lawyer habit of tolerating an inefficient process because changing it might take an afternoon.
I know what attorney time costs. I know why lawyers distrust confident machines. I know why a workflow that makes sense to a managing partner can still fail at the legal-assistant level.
Most operational problems are not dramatic. They are repetitive, expensive, and hiding inside an ordinary Tuesday.
Law practice, firm leadership, and years of working with lawyers.
Big Law Partner and Firm Leader
I spent approximately 15 years as an equity partner in two Am Law 100 firms. My work included corporate transactions, public and private companies, private equity sponsors, management teams, contracts, and negotiations.
I also served as an office managing partner and opened a New York office that grew to approximately 20 lawyers.
That experience taught me how sophisticated legal work is produced and how much expensive time disappears into revisions, communication failures, inconsistent processes, and avoidable rework.
Adviser and Trainer to Lawyers
I have coached more than 500 lawyers and delivered more than 100 workshops.
That work taught me something software demonstrations rarely acknowledge: adoption is a human problem.
People need to understand what is changing, why it matters, what they are expected to do, and where their judgment remains essential.
“Here is your login” is not an implementation plan.
Small firms were being handed enterprise answers to small-firm problems.
When generative AI became useful enough to matter, vendors said it would change everything. Skeptics said lawyers should stay away from it.
Neither helped a managing partner decide whether AI could improve intake next month, summarize a large file, produce a better first draft, or help staff prepare consistent client updates.
So I began testing the tools against actual law-firm work.
The conclusion was less exciting than the marketing and more useful: AI can improve parts of legal work. It can also produce fluent nonsense, expose confidential information, hide errors behind polished prose, and encourage people to skip steps they never understood.
The tool is rarely the whole answer. The workflow is. A Better Tuesday is how I think about it.
Improve recurring work without creating a second problem.
Intake and Follow-Up
Summaries, issue lists, conflict-check handoffs, document requests, and follow-up.
Drafting and Revision
Controlled first-draft and revision processes for recurring legal work.
File Analysis
Pleadings, email, transcripts, discovery, contracts, chronologies, and matter summaries.
Client Communication
Status updates, next-step explanations, meeting follow-ups, and education.
Internal Procedures
Checklists, handoff rules, prompt libraries, procedures, and review gates.
AI Governance
Approved tools, confidentiality, verification, billing, vendor review, and incident response.
Buying the platform is not the same as putting it to work.
I help firms connect the platform to recurring legal work. I am independent. I do not sell Lexis products or receive compensation from LexisNexis.
Make the work better. Keep judgment in control.
- Use what the firm already owns.
- Fix one workflow first.
- Include the people who perform the work.
- Specify who reviews what and against which source.
- Treat Florida ethics as operating requirements.
- Say no when AI is not the answer.
My recommendation does not change based on which company is sponsoring lunch.
Practical movement beats grand declarations.
We may be a good fit if your firm:
- Is based in Florida and has fewer than 25 lawyers
- Wants to improve specific workflows
- Prefers to begin with software it already owns
- Wants lawyers and staff involved
- Needs practical guardrails around existing AI use
- Will test, revise, document, and train
We are probably not a good fit if your firm:
- Wants custom software built from scratch
- Wants a product chosen before examining the work
- Expects AI to replace lawyer judgment
- Wants a strategy document nobody will implement
- Plans to exclude staff from process design
- Has decided AI is either magic or the end of civilization
The answer to AI risk is not panic. It is a controlled process.
Florida Bar Opinion 24-1 requires lawyers using generative AI to protect client confidentiality, provide competent and accurate service, avoid improper billing practices, and comply with lawyer-advertising rules. The 25 AI ethics questions are my plain-English answers to what firms ask most.
Those duties affect which tools the firm approves, what information may be entered, when informed consent may be required, how lawyers supervise staff use, what must be verified, how work is billed, what clients should be told, and who remains responsible.
One sensible next step.
Tell me what work causes friction, what software the firm owns, how the team handles the process, what the firm has tried, and what concerns prevent progress. I will tell you whether I see a practical starting point.