Karen Buzard is Shaping the Future of Law Through Responsible AI

In our Innovation Spotlight series, we interview innovation leaders about how they approach their jobs and how they’ve implemented and deployed Harvey.

In this edition, we chat with Karen Buzard, Partner – Head of US Markets Innovation Group at A&O Shearman.

Karen Buzard leads a group of lawyers, technologists, and developers who are focused on the creation of innovative solutions for clients that help them meet large-scale legal and regulatory challenges. She is at the forefront of driving the adoption and development of AI-powered solutions across the United States.

A champion of responsible AI, Karen has been instrumental in establishing and implementing robust AI governance and risk management frameworks for the firm and its U.S. clients. These frameworks have set new industry standards and have been adopted by major financial institutions and corporates across the country.

My career has never followed a straight or conventional path. Rather than adhering to a traditional trajectory, I have consistently sought out new challenges and opportunities, venturing into unfamiliar areas. This willingness to try new things has led me to discover my passion at the intersection of law and technology, with a particular focus on AI. Working in AI requires me to have a mindset open to experimentation and adaptability.

To me, innovation isn’t just about technology, but about challenging the status quo, being unafraid to think outside the box, take risks, and accept failure. This is often uncomfortable for most lawyers — including me — as we have been trained to identify risks. I have to continuously push myself to think outside the box and “go for it.”

Innovation involves being willing to change the way we work, whether in profound or sometimes very simple ways. This philosophy shapes my day-to-day work by encouraging creative thinking. I regularly question existing processes, explore emerging tools, and collaborate across disciplines. My career journey has provided me with the resilience and perspective needed to drive meaningful change, and it continues to inspire me to push the envelope and try new things.

Outside of work, spending quality time with my family, friends, and dogs is essential to my well-being and personal growth. These relationships ground me and help me maintain perspective, ultimately making me a better person and a more empathetic professional.

I’m also passionate about activities that help me clear my mind and maintain a sense of balance. I am an avid practitioner of yoga, a skier (albeit caution is the name of the game these days), and I love being on the water — whether that’s boating, paddleboarding, or time on the beach. I think my hobbies help me to innovate and perform at my best. The constant movement and mindfulness that come from these activities provide me with the mental clarity and space I need to think creatively. They help me reset, manage stress, and approach challenges with a fresh perspective. By making time for these passions, I am able to return to my professional life with energy, focus, and the openness required to adopt new ideas and drive innovation.

What excites me most about being an innovation leader today is the joy of discovering new ways to deliver legal services and problem-solving. I genuinely love what I do — finding new solutions, breaking through barriers, and experiencing the thrill of a breakthrough. Every day has fresh challenges and opportunities, and I consider myself fortunate to be energized by the work itself.

With respect to GenAI, the level of engagement from clients and their interest in exploring the potential of each of these tools amazes me. Each client interaction is an opportunity to witness firsthand how innovation can transform their experience and outcomes. The level of engagement, feedback, and collaboration that the clients provide us is motivating.

The most interesting development for me is the shift in client dynamics. For the first time in my career, clients are coming to us — initiating conversations and seeking our expertise on how we are leveraging GenAI. This “reverse inquiry” is a testament to the revolutionary nature of the technology and the value we are delivering. It’s incredibly rewarding to be at the forefront of this change, guiding clients through a transformative era and helping shape the future of legal services.

As a global law firm with over 4,000 lawyers operating in 43 countries, we required a solution that could seamlessly function across a wide range of practices and jurisdictions. Harvey stood out as an enterprise-wide tool specifically customized for the legal sector, offering the flexibility and scalability necessary for our operations.

Our primary goal in selecting Harvey was to enhance various aspects of legal work, including contract analysis, due diligence, litigation, and regulatory compliance. By integrating Harvey, and further innovating to develop our own ContractMatrix tool which incorporates Harvey, we are empowering our lawyers to deliver faster, smarter, and more cost-effective solutions to our clients, maintaining the high standards of quality and expertise that define our firm.

Having been at the forefront of legal technology for more than a decade, we recognized that generative AI tools like Harvey are game-changers capable of unleashing the power of generative AI to transform the legal industry. Its ability to operate in multiple languages and across diverse practice areas delivers unprecedented efficiency and intelligence.

Adoption of generative AI technology has not been limited to any particular practice area or region. The technology itself is intuitive and, once introduced, is quickly embraced across various teams and geographies.

The most notable and surprising trend has been the enthusiastic adoption among partners. In my experience, partners have always been slower to embrace new technologies, but with generative AI, many partners are not only engaging with the technology but are also eager to showcase its capabilities to clients.

On the other end of the spectrum, incoming associates also stand out. They arrive with an expectation that generative AI will be part of their workflow, having already used similar tools in law school. They are comfortable with the technology, understand its applications, and are ready to leverage it from day one.

While change management is important, it’s also important as part of change management to establish robust governance structures; this is foundational to our success in driving AI adoption. By creating dedicated committees, we ensured that both strategic direction and day-to-day operations were managed by the right mix of senior leaders, technical experts, and legal practitioners. This structure provided clarity, accountability, and rapid decision-making, which are essential in a fast-evolving AI landscape.

We also formed a group of innovation leaders, bringing together early adopters and champions from across the business. These individuals not only help identify opportunities and challenges but also serve as communicators and trainers, sharing best practices and encouraging wider adoption. Their enthusiasm and expertise have been instrumental in building trust and excitement around AI initiatives.

On the training front, I find that hands-on training, making lawyers actually use the technology rather than just showcasing it, is most effective. Embedding training into regular team meetings and firm initiatives is also a great way to drive adoption. This approach ensures that learning is relevant, contextual, and immediately applicable. By making training a routine part of our workflows, we lower barriers to adoption and help users build confidence in using AI tools.

Harvey streamlines the initial research phase for legal professionals. Previously, junior associates would spend considerable time learning and identifying key issues or problems at the outset of their research into a particular topic or when writing a memo. With Harvey, users can quickly surface key issues and focus on the core areas requiring further investigation much faster. This not only saves time but also allows legal teams to allocate more resources to deeper analysis.

Harvey Vault has also made the due diligence process more efficient, particularly in contract review. The tool enables much faster initial assessments of large volumes of contracts, flagging key provisions and potential risks for further review. While thorough analysis is still necessary, Vault enhances efficiency by allowing legal teams to quickly identify areas that require deeper attention, ultimately speeding up the overall due diligence workflow.

I also find that Harvey is very effective at synthesizing information. When faced with multiple documents and a need to consolidate various key points, Harvey is very helpful at consolidating and summarizing key issues. This capability is especially valuable where information is dispersed across various sources. Harvey helps users quickly generate comprehensive overviews, making it easier to identify trends, inconsistencies, or issues.

While AI is very important to the efficient delivery of services to our clients, it has to be deployed safely. All of our AI systems are deployed with guardrails and operational measures to manage hallucination and other risks, and are monitored over the product lifecycle.

A successful program augments our lawyers, freeing them from process, so that they can focus on the areas that require their expertise. Success not only involves cost savings for our clients, it involves providing better services, having better and happier practitioners, and revolutionizing the industry. We track efficiency gains where we can, but we must respect the confidentiality and privacy of our clients and lawyers when doing so.

Importantly, AI is holistic and we track how widely and frequently GenAI tools are being used across the firm, as a sign of their practical value and user trust. My most successful stories, though, are the water cooler stories. Very often, a lawyer stops me in the hall to tell me a use case or how AI saved them time and made their day better.

I would say a major lesson is that GenAI tools are most effective when introduced through specific, relevant use cases. These tools are intuitive and require little training, but their value becomes clear when applied to real and practical challenges. By identifying and enabling “super users” — those who are enthusiastic and quick to adopt new technology — you can create internal champions who help drive adoption and share best practices. Often, even skeptics become advocates after seeing tangible benefits in action.

While it’s important to make GenAI tools accessible, it’s equally important to manage risk without overcomplicating the process. Implementing a straightforward use case deployment policy ensures responsible adoption. At the same time, making simple, clear rules helps users feel confident and supported, without creating unnecessary complexity which can hinder adoption.

I feel that GenAI is poised to fundamentally reshape the legal industry. While the demand for high-value, expert legal services will remain for the foreseeable future, GenAI is already driving significant change in how legal work is delivered and who can access it.

We are witnessing the emergence of new roles — such as lawyer technologists and hybrid practitioners — who combine legal expertise with the ability to develop, prompt, and leverage AI tools. This evolution is enabling the team I work with to grow and innovate at an unprecedented pace, as evidenced by our ability to launch multiple proprietary A&O Shearman AI products in recent years.

I also think perhaps the most profound impact of GenAI will be its ability to democratize legal services. By automating routine tasks and making sophisticated legal tools more widely available, I believe GenAI will help to bridge the justice gap, providing better value and access to individuals and organizations who may have previously been underserved.

Ultimately, I expect GenAI will usher in a new era where technology and legal expertise are deeply intertwined. The legal professionals of the future will be those who can seamlessly integrate AI into their practice, delivering higher quality services to a broader range of clients and driving the industry forward.