We get this question on every discovery call: “What does this actually look like if we move forward?” Here’s the honest answer, broken down week by week, for a typical 10–15 attorney New York firm.
Before We Start: The Assessment
Before any engagement, we run a free 30-minute AI Readiness Assessment. This isn’t a sales pitch — it’s a diagnostic. We look at:
- Current AI tool usage (formal and informal — yes, we know some associates are already using ChatGPT)
- Existing policies (or lack thereof) around AI, data handling, and work product verification
- Practice area mix — because a litigation-heavy firm needs different training than a transactional shop
- Risk profile — malpractice carrier requirements, pending matters with AI disclosure standing orders, etc.
After the assessment, we’ll tell you one of three things: (1) you need a full engagement, (2) you need specific pieces, or (3) you’re actually in better shape than you think and here’s what to tighten up — no engagement necessary. We’ve told firms option three. We’d rather build trust than sell something you don’t need.
Week 1 Policy First
We don’t start with training. We start with your AI usage policy.
Why policy before training? Because teaching attorneys to use AI tools without establishing firm-wide guardrails is how malpractice claims happen. Attorneys need to know the rules before they start experimenting.
In the first week, we deliver a draft AI usage policy customized to your firm. This covers:
- Approved and prohibited AI tools
- Data classification and confidentiality requirements
- Client matter handling — what can and can’t be inputted into AI systems
- Work product verification requirements
- Disclosure obligations (mapped to current NY standing orders)
- Supervision and accountability structure
- Documentation and record-keeping standards
You review the draft with your partners. We revise based on your feedback. By end of week one, you have a policy you can implement — not a template you need to rewrite.
Weeks 2–3 Training Cohorts
We split your attorneys into cohorts by practice area. For a 15-attorney firm, this is typically 2–3 groups.
Each cohort gets two 90-minute hands-on sessions. Not lectures — workshops. Here’s what a typical session looks like:
Session 1: Foundation + Your Tools
- 15 min: The compliance framework (your new policy, NY rules, disclosure requirements)
- 30 min: Hands-on with the AI tools your firm actually uses (or is planning to adopt)
- 30 min: Practice exercises using anonymized versions of your firm’s actual work product
- 15 min: Q&A and real-time troubleshooting
Session 2: Advanced Application + Edge Cases
- 15 min: Review what worked and didn’t since Session 1
- 30 min: Practice-area specific workflows (e.g., contract redlining for transactional, research memo drafting for litigation)
- 30 min: Ethics edge cases — the gray areas where attorneys most need guidance
- 15 min: Building your personal AI workflow checklist
Every attorney leaves with:
- A printed quick-reference card for AI usage in their practice area
- A personal workflow checklist
- Access to our reference materials library
- Clear understanding of when AI helps, when it doesn’t, and when it’s a risk
Week 4 Implementation Support
This is where most training programs end. It’s where ours gets useful.
In week four, we hold office hours — two 60-minute blocks where any attorney at the firm can bring real questions from real work:
- “I’m drafting a motion and want to use AI for research — is this covered under the standing order in Judge X’s court?”
- “A client asked if we use AI. What do I say?”
- “I tried using [tool] for contract review and it missed a standard provision. What went wrong?”
These are the questions that come up in practice, not in training sessions. Having a resource to answer them is the difference between AI adoption and AI shelf-ware.
After the Engagement: Ongoing Support
We offer quarterly check-ins as part of our subscription. These cover:
- Policy updates — NY’s AI regulatory landscape is changing fast. Your policy needs to keep up.
- Tool updates — AI tools ship new features regularly. We flag the ones that matter for your practice.
- Adoption metrics — Are your attorneys actually using what they learned? Where are the gaps?
- New attorney onboarding — When you hire, the new person gets brought up to speed on your AI policies and tools.
What It Costs
We’re transparent about pricing. For a 10–15 attorney firm, a full engagement (policy + training + implementation support) runs $5,000–$8,000 depending on practice area complexity and tool mix.
Quarterly subscription for ongoing support: $1,500–$2,500/quarter.
That’s less than the cost of a single associate’s billable hours for a week. And it protects the firm from compliance risk that could cost orders of magnitude more.
What We Don’t Do
- We don’t sell AI tools. We’re vendor-agnostic. We train on whatever tools your firm uses or is evaluating.
- We don’t do generic CLE webinars. If you want CLE credit, we can structure the training to qualify, but the goal is behavior change, not credit hours.
- We don’t promise AI will transform your practice overnight. It won’t. What it will do — with proper training and policies — is make specific workflows measurably faster and more reliable.
The Bottom Line
A Fractal Legal engagement is four weeks of focused work: policy, training, and implementation support. You end up with a firm-wide AI usage policy, trained attorneys, and ongoing support to keep everything current.
Most firms tell us the policy alone was worth the engagement. The training is what makes the policy work in practice.
Ready to see if this is right for your firm? Book a free 30-minute assessment — no commitment, no pitch deck.