Mara De La Torre, Author at Legal Innovation Forum

The Legal Innovation Forum 2025: A Year In Review

As we wrap up a phenomenal year of events at The Legal Innovation Forum, we’d like to thank everyone for your support and participation throughout 2025.

From in-person forums in major cities around the world to hands-on workshops, exclusive roundtable dinners, and online webinars on key themes, we broke new ground in exploring the most significant drivers and emerging trends at the intersection of business, innovation and law.

2025 highlights include our live forums in Toronto, Atlanta and Chicago, our inaugural Middle East Symposium Series, a symposium in Montreal, and workshops in Toronto, Atlanta and Nashville.

We also held webinars throughout the year—ranging from our popular ongoing AI Masterclass series to our in-house counsel leadership series—and explored key practice areas including estates, data protection, capital markets, and real estate.

Here’s a look back at some of the key themes that emerged in 2025:

1. The shift from experimentation to real operationalization of AI

Firms and legal departments moved beyond pilot projects toward embedding AI into daily workflows to deliver measurable value
In-house teams and law firms are collaborating to ensure ethical AI adoption
Excitement is surging around agentic AI systems that perform multi-step tasks, while ensuring a focus on governance and risk management

2. Cross-functional collaboration is essential for transformation

Legal is increasingly partnering with IT, procurement, finance, and business teams on technology adoption
Multi-disciplinary working groups are forming to align goals, workflows, and data standards
Organizational culture and workforce training emerged as key success levers for modernization and talent retention

3. Legal teams are navigating risk from trade and supply chain disruption in a volatile geopolitical climate

Legal leaders played a key role in helping businesses stay resilient amid shifting trade policies, regulatory disruption, and cross-border realignments
Teams emphasized practical approaches to managing global risk, including stronger contract management, proactive regulatory monitoring, and more robust compliance frameworks
Lawyers increasingly served as strategic advisors, guiding business decisions and operational pivots in a rapidly changing and unpredictable global landscape

4. Data foundations are a new priority in today’s risk-on world

Firms invested heavily in data cleaning, governance, and system consolidation to support AI accuracy and mitigate digital risk
Organizations worked to break down data silos and ensure information could flow seamlessly across platforms
Teams are prioritizing building centralized, structured data environments to improve reliability and usability for AI-driven workflows

5. Legal leaders are redefining their roles to seize business opportunities and navigate disruption

Legal leaders are leading in new and strategic ways as they navigate an increasingly complex risk landscape, from data privacy and cybersecurity to regulatory shifts and geopolitical uncertainty
In-house teams are balancing urgent business demands with long-term resilience to protect the organization and ensure growth
The legal function continued to evolve into a proactive driver of opportunity, collaborating with the C-suite, law firm partners and service providers to shape strategy and guide the business through disruption

Stay tuned as we gear up for an exciting line-up of events exploring new themes and emerging risks, and opportunities in 2026!

The Year in Commodities: Top Insights from 2025

In 2025, energy and critical minerals moved from sector-specific concerns to central economic and geopolitical priorities. Against that backdrop, ADB Insights expanded its platform into the commodities space, holding innovation forums on energy and critical minerals at exclusive venues in Houston, Toronto, and New York.

These events set the stage for robust discussions between investors, industry leaders, expert advisors, and policymakers from both sides of the border.

OUR KEY tAKEAWAYS FOR THE ENERGY SECTOR:

1. AI-driven energy demand is transforming infrastructure planning

The surge in data center investment (projected to reach $580 billion globally in 2025) is creating unprecedented power demand that’s overwhelming grid capacity and forcing developers toward off-grid solutions.

2. Geopolitical uncertainty is reshaping legal and investment strategies

Regulatory shifts and trade policies are forcing energy companies to leverage contractual change-in-law and tariff adjustment clauses, while investors now require more sophisticated risk allocation mechanisms and are increasingly focused on scenario planning and portfolio diversification.

3. North American energy integration is accelerating

Integration in the US–Canada energy sector is on the upswing, with 51% of global M&A concentrated in North America in the first half of 2025. Canada’s increasingly favourable regulatory environment, its advances in SMR nuclear deployment, and the intensifying labor shortages in the US are all weighing in favor of this longstanding relationship.

4. Transmission access is the primary infrastructure constraint

Transmission access has emerged as the primary infrastructure bottleneck, with interconnection queues of 5+ years now the primary constraint on deployment, yet utilities incentives continue to favor capital-intensive new line construction over faster, lower-cost grid-enhancing technologies like reconductoring.

OUR KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR CRITICAL MINERALS:

1. The U.S. administration’s targeted investments are bolstering investor confidence and driving market interest

Yet the path for building out integrated Western supply chains remains unclear, with key aspects of the policy framework still unresolved.

2. Regulatory constraints remain major hurdles for new North American mining developments

In Canada, it can take five to 25 years to open a new mine, while in the U.S., the average is 29 years. For many critical minerals, the only realistic path to achieving “secure supply” in the next decade will come from working with partners on other continents.

3. China’s dominance in processing will not be easily reversed

China’s technological edge and overcapacity will continue to present major challenges for Western processors looking to compete in the global market, as well as for manufacturers looking to diversify their sources of supply.

4. The risk profile for critical minerals remains too high for most institutional investors

Few major banks have the expertise and risk appetite to underwrite these projects, leaving a significant investment gap for potentially transformative mining and processing technologies, as well as for junior mining companies.

A big thank you to all the speakers, sponsors, and participants who helped make our inaugural commodities events a big success. We look forward to continuing the conversation in 2026!

LIF INFOCUS RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE PART 2

In our latest webinar on residential real estate law, hosted by The Legal Innovation Forum in association with LEAP and Closer, we brought together legal and technology leaders to examine the shifting terrain of residential transactions in Canada. With market conditions in flux (on account of rising financing complexities, client uncertainty, and greater operational pressure) our panel explored how lawyers are adapting their workflows, enhancing client communication, and leveraging legal tech to navigate this moment of disruption.

Attendees heard firsthand how firms are dealing with presale risks, evolving lender expectations, and tighter transaction timelines, while also embracing tools that streamline conveyancing and improve service delivery.

The panel featured Lisa Niro, Managing Partner at Bell Alliance LLP; Ali Sodagar, Lawyer at Sodagar & Company; David Richardson, Business Development Manager at LEAP; and Harrison Kelly, Co-Founder and CEO of Closer. The session was chaired by Andrew Bowyer, Founder and CEO of The Legal Innovation Forum.

This three part blog series distills key insights from the conversation, with select video excerpts to explore the discussion further.

In association with

With market volatility, rising transaction complexity, and evolving client expectations, real estate law firms are being pushed to modernize their operations. AI, automation, and integrated platforms are no longer optional—they’re becoming essential to remain competitive and resilient.
At a recent legal technology webinar focused on residential real estate law, legal leaders and tech providers discussed how this transformation is unfolding across firms of all sizes—and why the current moment is a critical inflection point.

“We do business planning every single year,” said Lisa Niro, Managing Partner at Bell Alliance LLP. “And systems and process improvement is part of our planning every year. You sort of come up with a roadmap and a plan, and then you’re ready to execute—and you’re thinking, man, is this already outdated?”

That pace of change is being driven by both internal and external forces. As deal volumes slow and complexity increases, lawyers are spending more time negotiating custom terms, resolving disputes, and managing risk. The result is mounting pressure to reduce time spent on administrative and repetitive tasks.

This is where technology is playing a central role. Tools like LEAP and Closer are helping firms automate the basics, freeing up time for more valuable work. LEAP, a cloud-based legal practice management platform, integrates matter management, document generation, accounting, and AI-powered search. Closer complements this by using AI to scan agreements of purchase and sale and auto-fill matter files.

“We sat down as one of the first things we tried to do was to read the agreement of purchase and sale,” said Harrison Kelly, CEO of Closer. “The technology wasn’t ready in 2020. It is now… We’ve run 15,000 of them, and we save about 15 minutes per transaction.”

For firms operating in a slower market, that kind of efficiency isn’t just convenient. It’s strategic. “When things are slower, there’s pressure to do more with less,” Kelly said. “That’s the silver lining.”
Niro agreed, sharing that her firm used the downturn as a moment to revisit and relaunch technologies that hadn’t worked in the past.
“We attempted [tablet signing] back in 2016. It failed… We’re now relaunching it. The technology is there. You have to keep trying and keep thinking of how you can make things better.”

Importantly, the adoption of AI and automation isn’t about replacing legal professionals; it’s about enabling them.
“It’s not replacing people,” said Kelly. “It allows you to spend the time where it matters.”

David Richardson, Business Development Manager at LEAP, echoed this sentiment: “It’s not about eliminating jobs… It’s about enabling them to work smarter and more effectively. Not having to spend several hours looking through dozens of different documents to find one piece of information.”

Instead of getting bogged down in form generation or data entry, lawyers can focus on client experience and problem-solving—particularly important in high-value, high-stakes transactions.

“Our job as lawyers should be the client rapport, providing legal advice, and problem-solving,” said Niro. “We shouldn’t be involved in the data entry or preparing standardized documents.”

Client expectations are also shifting. With AI becoming more embedded in day-to-day life, firms that lag behind risk being seen as out of touch.

“Clients are expecting us to use technology and AI,” Niro added. “If you’re not, people are going to say, well, you have these other resources… why aren’t you using them?”

That cultural shift (from legal professionals and clients alike) is accelerating adoption across the industry.

“Invest in technology,” said Ali Sodegar, Principal at Sodegar & Company. “It’s going to pay dividends in the long term for sure.”

The firms that act now, replacing outdated systems, streamlining workflows, and building capacity for higher-value legal work, won’t just survive market turbulence. They’ll be well-positioned to lead when the recovery comes.

residential real estate

LIF INFOCUS RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE PART 1

In our latest webinar on residential real estate law, hosted by The Legal Innovation Forum in association with LEAP and Closer, we brought together legal and technology leaders to examine the shifting terrain of residential transactions in Canada. With market conditions in flux (on account of rising financing complexities, client uncertainty, and greater operational pressure) our panel explored how lawyers are adapting their workflows, enhancing client communication, and leveraging legal tech to navigate this moment of disruption.

Attendees heard firsthand how firms are dealing with presale risks, evolving lender expectations, and tighter transaction timelines, while also embracing tools that streamline conveyancing and improve service delivery.

The panel featured Lisa Niro, Managing Partner at Bell Alliance LLP; Ali Sodagar, Lawyer at Sodagar & Company; David Richardson, Business Development Manager at LEAP; and Harrison Kelly, Co-Founder and CEO of Closer. The session was chaired by Andrew Bowyer, Founder and CEO of The Legal Innovation Forum.

This three part blog series distills key insights from the conversation, with select video excerpts to explore the discussion further.

In association with

The Canadian residential real estate market has shifted dramatically since the highs of 2021–2022. As transaction volumes cool and inventory builds in major centres like Toronto and Vancouver, legal professionals are now operating in a landscape that is leaner, more complex, and increasingly dispute-prone.

“Nothing feels like a simple deal anymore,” noted Lisa Niro, Managing Partner at Bell Alliance LLP. “Every file has a bit of hair on it.”

This sentiment is echoed by Ali Sodagar, Lawyer at Sodagar & Company, who highlighted how cooling demand and tightening credit have reshaped transaction dynamics.

“We’re seeing more conservative financing, especially in the presale space. Developers who once had firm commitments are now renegotiating under pressure, often involving private lenders.”

Lawyers are being called upon not only to execute deals but to problem-solve. With more subject-to clauses appearing in contracts and lenders reassessing risk, lawyers are stepping into a central advisory role. Pre-sale contract defaults, increased litigation, and more intricate negotiations are becoming part of the daily rhythm.

And as Harrison Kelly, Co-Founder and CEO of Closer, pointed out: “Transactions are getting more complex… if we can eliminate low-value manual tasks, then lawyers can focus where it matters most.” This underscores a key shift in how firms are thinking about resourcing and technology. “When things are slower, there’s pressure to do more with what you have, or to do more with less.”

Beyond the operational challenges, this transition has significant strategic implications. In a slow market, firm profitability can suffer unless new value propositions are developed, often by rethinking pricing models, improving internal efficiency, and doubling down on client service.

“Volume is down, but complexity is up,” added David Richardson, Business Development Manager at LEAP. “Firms are managing multiple complex deals simultaneously, and disconnected systems make that even harder.”

Meanwhile, lawyers are contending with heightened client anxieties, tighter timelines, and more nuanced title and financing structures. Many are working within fixed-fee models, where profit margins are increasingly thin. The result: A growing premium on legal acumen, responsiveness, and the ability to navigate uncertainty with confidence.

“I think we all thought 2025 would be the turnaround year,” said Niro. “But with delays in interest rate relief and global uncertainty, the rebound may take longer. That said, there’s a huge amount of pent-up demand waiting in the wings. When the rebound comes, it could be fast and fierce.”

Ali Sodagar agreed that capital is still present, just waiting for the right conditions. “There’s still a lot of capital in the market. When interest rates shift or geopolitical uncertainty eases, that capital will re-enter. But for now, we’re in a holding pattern.”

In this bottlenecked market, lawyers who can guide clients through difficult deals, anticipate the next shift, and deliver meaningful counsel, especially under pressure, are the ones who will come out ahead. As the environment continues to evolve, staying close to the ground and closer to clients will define which firms are best positioned to lead the recovery.