In 2019, when the partners of mid-market UK law firm Schofield Sweeney sat down to plan the next phase of growth, they knew technology would play a significant role.
The Bradford-based practice, which has around 180 employees and earns annual revenues of £17 million, was founded in 1998 to fill the space left when national firms shifted upmarket, explains its managing partner Graham Sweeney. But competing in that space required more than legal expertise — it required an investment in technology infrastructure, too.
“We’ve always seen technology as a way to differentiate ourselves,” Sweeney tells TechInformed. “It helps us punch above our weight with certain clients.”
Sweeney claims that the firm was an early adopter of cloud solutions and Microsoft 365: “at a time when having email off-premise seemed alien to most people.”
In 2025, still, not even all the top law firms are focusing on cloud modernization, with 83% of the top 10 law firms focusing on it as their primary IT priority for the next 1-2 years, according to PwC.
PwC claims that organisations that have already reinvented their business through cloud modernization report fewer barriers to success, with 50% of EMEA businesses anticipating cost savings with the technology.
Systems overhaul
The 2019 partner meeting was predicated around enabling growth by replacing the firm’s practice management system (PMS) and document management system (DMS).
It identified NetDocuments as its preferred DMS, but then COVID-19 delayed implementation until early 2023. By then, the firm had established a permanent hybrid working model, its staff were accustomed to digital rollouts, and the transition began in earnest.
In April 2023, Schofield Sweeney moved four million of its firm documents into NetDocuments.
The upgrade immediately solved long-standing problems: documents that had been buried in file servers or embedded deep in the PMS were suddenly searchable, shareable and more secure, says Sweeney.
But, he says, it has also brought a foundation to better its tech.
“We needed systems that could talk to each other, and that meant documents had to live somewhere AI could reach them,” Sweeney says.
Push for clients
The drive toward AI has helped Schofield Sweeney surface insights, not just deliver paperwork, says Sweeney.
One example is the Trafford Centre, a large indoor shopping mall in Manchester, where decades of lease documentation sit rich with untapped intelligence. “Clients like that know there’s huge value in the documents we hold. They want us to help extract it,” he says.
Only a few years ago, lawyers worried that clients would distrust AI, says Sweeney, adding that the dynamic has reversed: clients are increasingly comfortable, while some lawyers remain cautious.
“Sometimes lawyers put fears into clients’ heads that aren’t actually there,” Sweeney says. “Clients are fine with AI if the guardrails are in place.”
The AI workstreams
The firm is developing several AI-driven workstreams to streamline both legal work and client development.
Pilots include using AI to speed up document review and due diligence, and automating lengthy client reports so they take minutes rather than an hour to produce.
Teams are also improving data quality across their CRM and PMS to support better marketing and business development insight.
A planned internal “AI agent” would let lawyers ask natural-language questions about clients, matters and activity history, providing instant, contextual answers.
“Imagine walking into a meeting fully briefed because an agent pulled together your billing history, matters, marketing interactions and more,” he says.
The long-term vision
With NetDocuments now embedded into the firm’s processes, the next goal is ensuring all systems connect: documents, CRM, case management, billing and analytics.
The hope is a “Nirvana state” in which lawyers no longer need to ask business analysts to pull reports or hunt through systems themselves.
Instead, they will simply state a question or command, such as “brief me on this client,” and receive a complete, reliable picture in seconds.
“We’re not a volume practice aiming to automate thousands of low-value tasks,” Sweeney says. “We’re looking to streamline high-value work, increase quality and compete effectively with much bigger firms.”
