Charlotte, NC – General counsel, legal operations leaders, compliance professionals, business executives, and Parker Poe attorneys sat side by side on September 10 at the firm’s Charlotte office to build and test AI apps addressing challenges that company leaders and attorneys face together every day. Working in small teams, participants explored AI models, refined prompts, and connected relevant knowledge sources to develop practical tools designed to improve collaboration and legal outcomes.

Teams chose from three tracks: company research, risk disclosure updates, and executive legal briefings. The executive briefing track drew approximately 90% of the participants and focused on a common source of friction in the client relationship, translating detailed legal updates into information business leaders can readily use. Clients and attorneys worked together to build assistants that tailored updates on a commercial dispute to different executives, making clear what had changed, why it mattered to the business, and what decisions or actions were needed. The exercise reflected the workshop’s broader purpose, which was about creating a better client experience through the everyday interactions that may never appear on a legal bill but shape the attorney-client relationship, from clearer communication to anticipating what a client needs next.

One senior IT leader of a global chemicals company who attended the event built an AI app that asks IT managers and directors what industry they belong to, the size of their company, and other relevant data in order to draft briefings for company executives. The workshop was a "super helpful" way to use AI to build the right prompts, compare how different AI models respond to those prompts, and then draft briefs for various levels of company executives so the information they would receive was relevant to them, the IT manager commented after the workshop.

The invitation-only workshop was part of the firm’s Moments That Matter™ client experience program. The program focuses on the interactions that most strongly shape trust, confidence, and long-term client relationships, and it helps create a more consistent and intentional client experience across the firm.

The event was intentionally created to make complex information easier to act on, surface risks sooner, and communicate more clearly, ultimately strengthening how clients and their lawyers work together, said Will Cannon, a Raleigh partner who leads Parker Poe’s Technology Industry Team and provided welcoming remarks for the event.

"Our clients know their businesses and the hurdles that slow their businesses down," Will said. "Our goal is to combine that knowledge with our legal judgment and practical uses of AI to remove those obstacles. We’re working alongside our clients to build tools that make their work easier and help their businesses move faster."

Using the Lega AI Builder Lab platform, participants collaborated in groups of four to six people. Christian Lang, the founder of Lega and now head of innovation at BARBRI (which recently acquired Lega), facilitated the event and selected three winning innovations. Parker Poe will donate the prize money for each winning team to a charity of their choice. The three winning teams presented their work informally during a cocktail reception that followed, with guests circulating between them.

Parker Poe is among the first firms in the country to run a client lab of this kind. A similar client AI lab with Fasken in Canada brought lawyers and clients together to build practical AI solutions, and the case study of Lega’s Client AI Lab with Fasken earned the Most Inspiring Showcase Audience Award at the 2026 SKILLS Law Showcase.

"This new technology and the ability to collaborate using AI is exciting because it allows us to provide a better work product for our clients," said Russell Killen, a partner in the firm’s Raleigh office who leads the Technology Committee. "As lawyers, that’s our goal."

"When used properly, AI provides lawyers and clients with a better basis for decision-making," Russell added. "You can take the judgment and experience of a lawyer and the business needs of a client and now you’re able to use this tool to get to better decisions faster. That’s the real benefit of building AI tools together. You’re able to think through complicated problems in a more effective way. That’s good for the clients and the law firms."

The most important thing to the client is not the technology, said Kristen Bateman Leis, Parker Poe’s chief marketing and business development officer. What they want is predictability, clearer communication, fewer surprises, and a team that knows their business well enough to see what is coming. The technology can help attorneys get to that better client experience and business outcome.

"The relationships that matter are not built at the closing table," Kristen said. "They are built in the ordinary moments in between, and this was one of them. A client and their lawyer at the same table, building the same thing, deciding together what 'better' looks like. That is what the relationship is all about."

About Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP
Businesses and local governments turn to Parker Poe to structure transactions, navigate regulations, and resolve disputes. Founded in 1884, the Southeast business law firm today has approximately 300 attorneys across offices in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Washington, DC.

Parker Poe is a member of two leading international legal networks: TerraLex and the Employment Law Alliance. TerraLex and the ELA have chosen Parker Poe to help guide clients through the challenges of global business.