The most important conversations in legal technology right now are happening inside law firms, between the partners, innovation directors, knowledge leads and applications architects who decide - in practice, not in principle - how AI-powered drafting gets adopted, governed and embedded into how a firm actually works. 

Today we’re introducing the Avvoka Customer Advisory Board: eight of those people, drawn from leading international law firms, at one table, shaping how Avvoka builds next. The board convened for its first session during New York LegalWeek in March 2026. 

Want to skip to the insights? Check out out notes from the first meeting.  

Why now 

The questions in legal technology have changed. They're about how firms embed, adopt and govern AI drafting at scale, without eroding what each firm is known for. The people answering them sit inside firms running innovation, knowledge and technology. We wanted eight of them in a room. 

Our criteria: leaders shaping what comes next 

Avvoka has been building drafting infrastructure alongside law firms for a decade. That work has earned a specific kind of trust: more than one in five of the Am Law 100 now runs on the platform, retention among those customers is 100% and more than a million documents have been drafted on Avvoka. Every one of those firms has shaped the product at some point. The Customer Advisory Board formalises that practice - and will drive a product roadmap shaped for the future of law. 

The eight people we invited are among the most consequential innovation leaders working in legal today. They’re shaping how AI gets used, how it’s governed and what firms are expected to deliver as a result. What they decide this year becomes standard practice across the profession over the next few.  

They’re the people who: 

• carry new technology from procurement into how a whole practice works

• design workflows that turn AI from a promise into an operating capability 

• own the governance that decides whether AI drafting gets used responsibly across the profession 

• train, cajole and carry hundreds of lawyers through change 

• champion the changes that unlock efficiency, speed and new opportunity firm-wide 

These are visionary roles as well as practical ones. They work inside real constraints - Word, risk committees, precedent libraries, client pressures that change with every matter - and they’re the people defining what legal technology should be beyond them.  

“For ten years, every product decision we’ve made has started with a conversation with a customer. The CAB puts eight of the most respected operators in our category straight into how we build. It makes it much harder for us to drift.” 

- Eliot Benzecrit, Co-Founder, Avvoka 

Meet the inaugural members 

Conan Hines  -  Director of Practice Innovation, Fried Frank 

One of the few innovation directors who has shipped custom technology across the entire fund formation lifecycle, Conan brings the product discipline that comes from having built, not just bought. 

Jesse Klee  -  Director of Knowledge Management and Innovation, Fenwick 

Jesse leads KM and innovation at one of Silicon Valley’s most tech-forward firms and brings an unusually cross-functional team - attorneys, MBAs, process engineers and researchers - to how he thinks about adoption. 

Ruth Ward  -  Global Director of Knowledge and Expertise, Ashurst 

Nearly two decades running knowledge at Allen & Overy, a stint at the Government Legal Department and a mandate at Ashurst to embed digital capability into the knowledge offering: Ruth is one of the most respected KM leaders in the international market. 

Allison Duncan  -  Practice Innovation Director, Reed Smith 

Allison runs a team of eight technologists and business analysts behind Reed Smith’s document automation platform and application builder and her Data Inventory Survey Tool was recognised in the FT 2024 North America Innovative Lawyers Report. 

Alicia Hardy  -  Director of Knowledge and Learning, Carey Olsen 

A qualified solicitor with more than thirty years in global firms, including eleven years as global director of professional support at White & Case, Alicia brings a dual KM and learning perspective that few others in the market can match. 

Richard Robbins  -  Senior Director, AI and Innovation, Reed Smith 

MIT-educated in electrical engineering and computer science, a UChicago Law JD, a former Am Law 10 partner and Morningstar’s first general counsel, Richard is one of the rare operators with equally deep credentials on the legal and the technical side of AI. 

Winston Burt  -  Director of Legal Technology, Ropes and Gray 

More than two decades at Ropes and Gray and co-chair of the Future Lawyer USA conference, Winston leads a team that's built some of the most sophisticated practice-specific AI workflows we see anywhere in BigLaw. 

Yuriy Fishman  -  Director of Enterprise Applications, Cleary Gottlieb Steen and Hamilton 

A former system architect and senior applications manager, Yuriy thinks about how drafting technology fits into broader firm infrastructure - the perspective most often missing from product conversations in our category. 

What the board will do 

The CAB meets several times a year. Three key things come out of that room. 

Expertise from the day-to-day. Members bring the texture of what happens inside top firms when new legal tech lands - how drafting gets done, how technology is adopted and governed and how it holds up day to day on live matters. 

A discourse on what matters. The board sets the agenda on the questions that define the next few years of legal work: what AI is really changing, what governance has to do to keep pace, what clients are starting to expect. Avvoka's drafting infrastructure is built to answer that agenda. 

A roadmap that empowers the operators. The product the board shapes is one that makes every innovation lead, every KM lawyer, every drafting partner more effective across every practice area - better outputs, faster, and on firm-specific terms.  

“The future of drafting is being defined right now and the people defining it are the innovation, knowledge and technology leaders inside firms, working out what safe, scalable adoption actually looks like in practice. This board is a commitment to build alongside them.” 

- David Howorth, Co-Founder, Avvoka 

What happens next 

The board meets next around Legaltech Talk in mid-June and again at ILTA in August. We’ll publish a recap after each session. 

The CAB is a commitment - not to a feature set or a roadmap, but to the principle Avvoka’s been built on since 2016: the best product decisions get made in the room with the people who live with them. We’re grateful to the inaugural members and we’ll keep widening the room. 

If you lead innovation, knowledge or legal technology at an international law firm and want to be a part of future conversations, we’d love to hear from you. Reach us at hello@avvoka.com.