Recorded at the Legal Geek Conference in Amsterdam, this episode is a front-row seat to how one of the Netherlands' leading law firms is navigating the AI revolution from the inside. Joris Willems, partner and head of the Technology Group at NautaDutilh, has been a tech lawyer for over 25 years, and even he had to walk on his toes to keep up.
In conversation with Hidde Bruinsma, Joris shares the real story behind NautaDutilh's AI journey:
- How NautaDutilh got embedded inside Prosus' AI engineering team during the build of their internal tool Toqan, not writing memos from the sidelines, but joining standups and design decisions
- The deliberate choice to first build their own AI tool with a startup, before switching to Legora for firm-wide rollout
- The \"AI virus\": how organic adoption made it impossible to take the tool away, and how that became the smartest pitch to the partnership
- Why two junior lawyers chatting at the in-house barista about a five-minute Legora translation says more about the future than any strategy deck
- The generation gap: juniors who embrace AI instantly versus senior partners who are still processing what just happened
- How the profession will change and why nobody, including Joris, has all the answers yet
- Why value-based billing will replace the billable hour as the default, and what that means for firm economics
- The culture of a 302-year-old firm where senior partners see themselves as custodians handing the keys to the next generation, not owners protecting their share
- What it was like negotiating with OpenAI when the Italian regulator suddenly intervened mid-call
- Why \"get comfortable being uncomfortable\" is Joris' most important advice for young lawyers, and why it has nothing to do with AI
Joris offers a refreshingly candid perspective on what it actually takes to land AI inside a traditional law firm, not just the tooling, but the culture, the patience, and the willingness to experiment while the profession reinvents itself around you.
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