Launch Protocol: How Law Firms Are Adopting AI in Real Time

Jared Correia sits down with Sean McTigue, a partner at Bartko Pavia LLP and one of the more technically fluent attorneys in practice today. Sean unpacks how his firm navigated the leap from legal-specific AI tools to a direct enterprise deployment of Anthropic's models, and why he thinks that distinction matters a lot more than most firms realize.

The conversation covers practical ground: how to use Westlaw's Quickcheck as a verification loop, why lawyers overestimate what AI will do for them on the first try, and how to find the early adopters inside a firm and turn their discoveries into firm-wide workflows. Sean also looks ahead at what AI means for the billable hour model and why the legal profession can't afford to stay in the way.

Sean McTigue is a partner at Bartko Pavia LLP in San Francisco, where he handles complex litigation with a particular focus on integrating AI into the practice of law. He has been following the development of large language models closely since GPT-4's launch and has led the firm's rollout of Anthropic for Enterprise. Sean studied philosophy at the University of Utah and earned his law degree at Berkeley Law.

• Hallucination risk in AI outputs is a solved problem, using tools like Westlaw's Quickcheck as a verification flywheel alongside AI drafting, not a reason to avoid AI entirely.

• Legal-specific tools rarely add value beyond a general foundation model; the wrapper around the model matters less than most vendors claim.

• Direct enterprise deployment of a foundation model lets firms ride the frontier rather than being stuck on whatever model a SaaS vendor last tested.

• The billable hour model is under pressure, and firms that build internal AI capital now are better positioned to shift toward fixed-fee and alternative-fee arrangements.

• Adoption inside a firm starts with finding the heavy users, learning what they figured out, and distributing those workflows to everyone else.

• Red Cave Law Firm Consulting
• Bartko Pavia LLP
• Westlaw CoCounsel
• Westlaw Quickcheck - available inside your Westlaw subscription
• Anthropic for Enterprise

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• [00:02:01 - 00:04:54] Sean introduces Westlaw Quickcheck as the underused verification tool that turns hallucination risk into a manageable step in the workflow.
• [00:05:00 - 00:07:57] Sean explains why lawyers who try AI once, find it imperfect, and dismiss it are missing the workflow question entirely.
• [00:08:13 - 00:09:28] The hammer-and-nail analogy: being handed a tool and told to use it without any guidance on what the full project actually looks like.
• [00:19:14 - 00:23:27] Sean describes the frustration of vetting legal AI vendors who can't tell you what model they're running, including an e-discovery platform using Haiku 3 on million-document reviews.
• [00:24:54 - 00:28:05] The case for direct foundation model deployment over legal-specific SaaS wrappers, and what you can do with a generalist model that a niche tool will never offer.
• [00:36:44 - 00:40:43] The future of legal billing: from the billable hour back toward fixed-fee engagements, and why firms that build AI capital now are better positioned.
• [00:41:50 - 00:47:23] Sean's starter recommendation: Westlaw citing references downloaded in bulk and fed to an LLM, plus why Google AI Overview is already AI whether lawyers know it or not.