The American Arbitration Association announced its Resolution Simulator, powered by the AI Arbitrator. This new tool generates a non-binding simulated decision based on the user’s submissions and feedback, with explainable, informational insights grounded in the AI Arbitrator’s structured reasoning.

Built for single party, documents-only commercial and construction disputes, the Resolution Simulator provides insights and analysis to help legal teams assess potential exposure, think through dispute-resolution strategy before formal proceedings, and see how an arbitrator might analyze and resolve a dispute.

Read the full press release: https://www.adr.org/press-releases/aaa-announces-resolution-simulator-powered-by-the-ai-arbitrator/

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Legal technology often promises efficiency yet leaves lawyers adapting their work to fit rigid software. Project Fortress took the opposite route: It began inside an active legal practice, shaped by the pressures of high volume transactional work and refined through daily use by attorneys at an Am Law 100 firm.

Today, Project Fortress is a legal operations platform designed to bring structure, visibility, and intelligence to complex legal work. Its foundation reflects the environment that produced it: fast moving transactions, large deal teams, and clients managing multiple matters at once.

A Platform Born in the Deal Surge

The origins of Project Fortress trace back to the extraordinary M&A cycle of 2021. Transaction volumes surged across industries while legal teams relied on tools that had changed little in decades.

Closing checklists lived in Word documents and spreadsheets. Key communications moved through long email chains. Institutional knowledge from prior transactions remained scattered across shared drives or buried in individual inboxes.

Collen Steffen, then an M&A attorney, experienced these constraints daily while managing active deals. The complexity of the work itself was expected. The challenge was the operational structure supporting it.

Deal teams spent significant time organizing information rather than analyzing it. Every new matter required rebuilding processes that had already been used many times before.

Steffen began developing a system that would organize matters in a consistent format, capture knowledge as work occurred, and give legal teams a centralized view of the transaction lifecycle. What started as a practical solution inside one legal practice expanded into the foundation of Project Fortress.

Building Legal Infrastructure on Salesforce

Project Fortress was designed as infrastructure rather than a point tool. The platform runs on Salesforce, providing an enterprise grade environment for structuring legal data and workflows.

Using this foundation, the Fortress platform brings together the systems attorneys already rely on. Integrations connect Fortress with document management systems such as iManage and NetDocuments, productivity tools within Microsoft 365, and collaboration platforms used by deal teams and clients.

Instead of replacing these systems, Fortress organizes them around a single operational framework. Matters, tasks, communications, diligence materials, and transaction data exist within one environment.

Interactive deal checklists and playbooks guide matters from initiation through closing. Communication channels remain tied to specific matters so teams retain context throughout the lifecycle of a transaction.

This structure produces a single source of truth for legal operations. Attorneys and clients gain real time visibility into the status of deals, milestones, and outstanding tasks.

For private equity clients and portfolio companies managing serial acquisitions, this structure supports coordination across multiple transactions occurring at the same time.

Structured Data as the Foundation for Legal AI

Once legal work becomes structured within a platform, another capability emerges. Artificial intelligence can operate with far greater accuracy when it draws from organized legal data rather than isolated documents.

Project Fortress introduced its AI framework directly inside the platform environment. In this model, the structured data generated by ongoing matters provides the context for AI analysis.

The system can review thousands of discovery and diligence documents and generate actionable work product in hours instead of weeks. Diligence reviews can convert into organized summaries and charts that support decision making. Large markups become detailed issues lists with built in market analysis, recommendations, and drafting guidance. Deal studies can analyze trends across a firm’s own historical transactions.

Because the system operates inside the matter environment, results remain connected to client specific workflows and precedent. Attorneys remain in control of the process while automation reduces the time spent on repetitive review and synthesis.

The approach treats AI as a component of legal operations rather than a separate tool.

Tested Inside an Am Law 100 Firm

Project Fortress moved from concept to operational platform through its adoption at Polsinelli. The firm became the first Am Law firm to implement the platform across multiple transactional and litigation practice groups.

Hundreds of attorneys and client teams now use Fortress to manage matters ranging from M&A, litigation and real estate transactions to venture capital, debt finance, and regulatory work.

The platform integrates with the firm’s existing technology stack and supports collaboration between attorneys and clients across the deal lifecycle.

For clients pursuing acquisition strategies that involve multiple deals at once, Fortress provides visibility into how those transactions progress from sourcing through integration. Legal teams can monitor milestones, coordinate diligence, and track the evolution of deal terms across a portfolio of matters.

This environment allows legal work to align more closely with the operational strategy of the business itself.

The Future of Legal Operations

Project Fortress began as an attempt to bring order to the operational challenges of modern legal practice. Its continued development reflects a broader shift within the profession.

Law firms and corporate legal departments increasingly require platforms that organize knowledge, coordinate teams, and generate insights from their own work product.

When legal operations become structured, technology can support analysis, planning, and collaboration at a far deeper level.

Project Fortress represents one example of this direction. Built by practicing lawyers and tested within the workflows of an Am Law 100 firm, the platform illustrates how legal technology can evolve when it begins inside the practice of law itself.

Meet Project Fortress at Legalweek: Booth 410.

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AllRize, an innovative provider of award-winning legal technology solutions, today announced its new Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) module, designed to help firms protect client confidentiality, govern AI usage, and demonstrate compliance with confidence. The new module, which is built on Microsoft Purview and enhanced with AllRize legal-specific intelligence, is available as an option with the AllRize Practice Management Platform.

As a Microsoft Partner, AllRize leverages Microsoft Purview’s data governance and compliance capabilities while extending them with legal-specific workflows, matter context, and AI-powered automation. As a result, the AllRize GRC module empowers law firms with a unified, matter-centric approach to data governance, risk management, and compliance—all without adding operational complexity.

Click for the full announcement.

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Discover the Latest Estate Planning Trends

Are you curious about the latest trends in estate planning? WealthCounsel, in partnership with Trusts & Estates magazine and Informa Engage, surveyed estate planning professionals to discover the latest emerging trends in the industry.

What To Expect

This year’s survey explores a variety of topics, including preferred methods of drafting trusts, client concerns about federal gift or estate tax, career satisfaction, and attitudes toward emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI).

→ Download the full report for free here.

Stay Informed, Stay Ahead

WealthCounsel has been helping elder law attorneys, estate planners, and business lawyers practice competently and confidently for over 25 years. Learn more about the products we offer to help you practice with greater efficiency and accuracy, allowing your entire office to remotely access files in real-time and collaborate anytime, anywhere.

Want to stay connected? Subscribe today to receive the WealthCounsel Quarterly—the premier legal magazine for estate planning and elder law attorneys.

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Lawyers handle high volumes of email daily — but without a system to capture, organize, and retain those emails as legal records, inefficiencies and risks multiply.

Explore how legal teams can free up time and reduce costs by implementing structured email management practices that support compliance and productivity.

Check it out here: https://www.colligo.com/email-management-for-lawyers-frees-up-time-saves-costs/

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Many legal teams have already proven that AI can deliver value.

Pilot projects show promising results in document review, contract analysis, investigations, and legal research. But when it comes time to scale these initiatives, progress often slows — or stops entirely.

The reason is almost always the same: privacy and regulatory risk.

Why Legal AI Struggles to Scale

AI systems require large volumes of high-quality, real data. Yet as AI initiatives expand, legal teams face growing concerns around:

  • Exposure of personal and sensitive data
  • Inconsistent anonymization practices
  • Regulatory obligations across jurisdictions
  • Loss of control as data moves across systems and vendors

What works in a controlled pilot environment often breaks down at scale.

Scaling AI Starts with Data Protection

To scale legal AI responsibly, privacy cannot be treated as a downstream control. It must be built into the foundation of how legal data is managed.

Nymiz enables organizations to scale AI initiatives by ensuring that sensitive legal data is protected before it is used for training, analysis, or sharing. This infrastructure-level approach allows legal teams to:

  • Use real data across multiple AI use cases without reintroducing risk
  • Apply consistent anonymization across large and evolving datasets
  • Maintain compliance as data volumes and workflows grow
  • Reduce reliance on manual controls that don’t scale

By standardizing anonymization at the infrastructure level, organizations can scale AI initiatives more efficiently; often reducing preparation time by up to 80% while maintaining close to 85% anonymization accuracy across growing datasets.

From Pilot Projects to Enterprise-Ready AI

When privacy is embedded into legal data infrastructure, scaling AI becomes a matter of expansion — not risk management.

Legal teams gain the ability to:

  • Move AI projects from pilot to production
  • Support multiple tools and teams with the same protected datasets
  • Build trust with stakeholders, regulators, and leadership
  • Innovate faster without sacrificing compliance

This shift turns privacy into a strategic advantage rather than a limiting factor.

Join Us at Legalweek 2026

We’re meeting with legal and security leaders during Legalweek to discuss how privacy-first collaboration can scale without adding friction or risk.

Schedule a meeting with our team before Legalweek to make the most of your time in New York.

Click for a brief video.

And if you’re onsite, you’ll find us at Booth 612.

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Some attorneys decide to practice estate planning right after graduating from law school. Others practice in other areas, only to become curious about transitioning fully or partially into estate planning. Most attorneys who make this transition feel great satisfaction and little or no regret about making this career shift. There are many reasons why estate planning is such a rewarding practice area and many additional reasons why now could be the ideal time to make the switch.

Any Time Is a Good Time to Be an Estate Planning Attorney

Estate planning is known to some as “happy law,” as it is a stark contrast to other, more contentious practice areas like civil litigation and family law. Attorneys who have already chosen to include estate planning in their practice have cited the following reasons as to why they could not be happier with their decision.

1. It Is Low-Conflict

Unlike litigation or family law, estate planning, by its very nature, is not adversarial; it does not involve multiple parties playing a zero-sum game. With estate planning, you may occasionally have to discern conflict of interest issues between married clients or deal with your clients’ meddling family members. But overall, estate planning practice is low in conflict, and your clients may actually thank you for your help.

Further, in litigation or family law matters, clients are usually thrust into the legal process against their will, for example, if they are sued or need to fight a custody battle. When this is the case, clients may take their frustrations out on everyone and everything, including their attorney. With estate planning, clients are actively opting in to engage your services. They want the solutions you provide. They are in your office intentionally. This radically changes the way that clients interact with you.

2. It Allows for a Personal Connection with Clients

Estate planners work closely with clients and get to know them and their families personally. They can support people through life’s most significant milestones, such as births, deaths, marriages, and divorces. Further, this practice area allows you to know your clients over many years, often meeting and working with subsequent generations as well. Many practitioners find such relationships very rewarding and enjoyable.

3. It Offers Flexibility and Work-Life Balance

Working as an estate planning attorney allows great flexibility regarding work environment (they can work at a big firm or run a solo practice). There is also flexibility in terms of time management and scheduling. This allows estate planners to design a work life that suits them—and serves their clients—in the best possible way.

Practitioners may limit their hours to certain times of the day or certain days of the week. Some attorneys prefer to work evenings, which also works well for clients who work during the day. Attorneys can block off time in their schedule for doctor’s appointments or build their work schedule around family obligations. Because estate planners rarely, if ever, go to court, their schedule is not at the mercy of a judge.

Now Is a Particularly Good Time to Be an Estate Planning Attorney

The perks of being an estate planner explain why estate planning is such an enjoyable practice area. But there are many other reasons why now may be a perfect time to put your hat in the estate planning ring.

4. The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Underway

As you may have heard, the United States is undergoing one of the greatest generational shifts this country has ever seen. Called the “Silver Tsunami” by some, this shift refers to the significant and rapid increase in the general age of the population. The WHO predicts that the number of people aged 60 and older worldwide will increase from 1 billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion by 2030 and 2.1 billion by 2050. As a result of this population shift, it is estimated that $84 trillion (that’s trillion, with a “t”) will change hands over the next 20 years in the United States alone. This transfer of wealth will primarily originate from the Baby Boomer generation (people born between 1946 and 1964) and will largely benefit Generation X (people born between 1965 and 1980), Millennials (people born between 1981 and 1996), and Gen Z (people born between 1997 and 2012).

Estate planning attorneys have an incredible opportunity to help facilitate this transition. Baby Boomer clients will need comprehensive estate plans to ensure their desired loved ones inherit their assets and that inheritances pass according to their wishes. Estate planners also stand to assist the recipients of this transfer of wealth. It is well known that the generations following the Baby Boomers—particularly Millennials—have delayed major life milestones such as marriage, starting a family, homeownership, and saving for retirement because of various economic and social factors. Until now, these generations may have seen little value in preparing an estate plan. Once they receive inheritances, however, estate planning may, and arguably should, become a top priority. Estate planning attorneys have the opportunity to educate potential clients about their options and the value of a comprehensive estate plan and could help protect this inherited wealth for future generations.

5. Americans Need Help Understanding New Complexities in Retirement Planning

For many Americans, retirement assets make up most of their wealth. Therefore, it is important for most people to understand the implications of passing these assets to loved ones. While some people create estate plans via online services such as LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer, an experienced estate planning attorney can provide guidance, expertise, and options that will bring incredible value to a client

With the advent of the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (SECURE Act) and the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023), the retirement planning landscape has significantly changed. The rules and regulations surrounding how people inherit certain types of retirement accounts are even more complicated and nuanced than before. Estate planning attorneys who take the time to understand the SECURE and SECURE 2.0 Acts can offer the significant legal knowledge and experience necessary to plan for these very important assets.

6. Potential Changes in Rules Offer Additional Planning Opportunities for Estate Planners

There are often changes made, or proposed, to the rules that impact estate planning decisions, at both the state and federal levels. Such changes may relate to the federal lifetime gift and estate tax exemption amounts, state estate taxation thresholds, or the assessment of capital gains taxes to name a few examples.

This is where an estate planning attorney can step in and provide significant value. With tools such as irrevocable trusts, irrevocable life insurance trusts, gifting strategies, and charitable planning, attorneys can assist clients in achieving their goals (such as eliminating or reducing estate tax liability or passing the greatest possible value on to loved ones) in the most effective ways. As with planning for retirement assets, the average American is not aware of these strategies, let alone able to make them function in the intended way all on their own.

Estate planning attorneys are uniquely qualified to counsel individuals on their options and tailor an estate plan that not only addresses estate tax concerns but also takes care of the client’s overarching desire to provide for their loved ones and pass on their legacy on their own terms.

What You Can Do to Get in the Game

Any new endeavor can be daunting, and shifting to a completely different area of law is no exception. Luckily, WealthCounsel has a program that will teach you the fundamentals of estate planning law and provide practical guidance on building your estate planning practice.

Estate Planning Bootcamp is a virtual, three-day workshop that will equip attorneys with the strong legal foundation and practice-building skills needed to confidently serve estate planning clients. Click here to learn more and see all upcoming Bootcamps.

 

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iManage Cloud helps store and manage critical business content that teams rely on every day. Without a backup and recovery solution to protect their data, businesses can come to a standstill and expose themselves to legal and regulatory risks.

The solution?

A purpose-built backup and recovery solution for iManage Cloud that offers automated off-site backups with quick, one-click recovery of data in the event of accidental deletions, attacks, malicious changes, disasters, or human error.

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Legacy legal document management systems are being re-evaluated as legal teams modernize their workflows. Learn more about the 5 key reasons legal departments and law firms are moving from legacy DMS platforms to a Microsoft 365-centric approach — including improving governance, reducing complexity, and enhancing daily efficiency.

Read the full insights here: https://www.colligo.com/microsoft-365-legal-dms-5-reasons-legal-teams-are-replacing-legacy-systems/

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