Husch Blackwell
Husch Blackwell reports 8,800 hours saved in 2024 with Microsoft Copilot and its own AI tool
Husch Blackwell, a US law firm with more than 20 offices, deployed Microsoft Copilot to attorneys in 2024 after building an in-house tool called Prompt Composer. Microsoft's customer story reports 8,800 hours saved on routine tasks in 2024 and 160 hours saved on writing attorney bios.
Key figures
Copied exactly from the sources. Copy any figure with its citation.
What it took
Cost, team size and timeline were not disclosed in the sources.
The problem
Husch Blackwell saw a rise in cases, particularly in the energy sector. Lawyers spent hours on repetitive, expensive chores: typing up meeting transcripts, condensing deposition records, handling their inboxes and working through voicemail. That left less time for clients. The firm wanted to raise efficiency and cut costs without adding staff.
What they built
Husch Blackwell started deploying generative AI tools in 2023 that scanned and summarized long documents and online databases for research and analysis. It also built Prompt Composer, an in-house tool where lawyers upload a set of documents or data and get quick answers to questions about it. In 2024 the firm gave Microsoft Copilot to attorneys for everyday tasks such as summarizing meetings, asking questions of documents and drafting correspondence.
How they did it
The firm worked with Microsoft and used Azure computing capacity to scale. It trained its workforce on what Copilot could do and let each attorney use it for the work that took most of their time. Meetings in Microsoft Teams were transcribed and summarized by AI, so attorneys could focus on the client. Copilot also lets lawyers search across their presentations, documents and email on a topic. The firm is working with Microsoft to extend access to all staff.
Results
Microsoft reports that Copilot capabilities helped attorneys save 8,800 hours of work in 2024. In one example, the firm hired more than 100 summer associates in 2024. Staff would have needed up to 160 hours to write their website bios, and Prompt Composer finished the job in one afternoon. The story also says AI transcription removes the need to hire transcriptionists for attorneys with hearing loss, which cuts cost and improves accessibility.
Lessons for your project
Build on earlier wins. The firm started in 2023 with simple tools for summarizing and searching documents, then added Copilot once attorneys had seen value.
Let each professional use the tool for the work that eats their own time, and train the workforce on the range of uses.
Hunt for one-off chores that staff dislike, such as writing dozens of biographies, and automate them for a visible early win.
Add AI meeting notes and transcription where they remove a cost or an accessibility barrier, not only where they save time.
Caveats
- The only source is a Microsoft customer story. The firm's figures are not independently verified.
- The story does not explain how the 8,800 hours were measured, or how many attorneys the figure covers.
- The 160-hour figure is an estimate of what the work would have taken staff (up to 160 hours), not a measured before-and-after.
- The story gives only the year of deployment (2024), so deployedDate uses the month of the story's date (April 2025), not an actual go-live month.
- The story does not name the model behind Copilot or Prompt Composer. The page was read through an archived copy.
Sources
- Husch Blackwell streamlines legal processes with Microsoft Copilot, saving lawyers 8,800 hours
Microsoft · 2025-04-04 · Vendor case study · microsoft.com
Summarized in our own words from the sources above. Spotted an error? See corrections.