The legal industry is undergoing a significant transformation, with AI leading the charge toward smarter, more streamlined workflows
At the 2025 ALPMA Innovations in Legal Software Showcase, Hayley Leung, Senior Solutions Expert at NetDocuments, joined Emma Elliott, CEO of ALPMA, for a powerful discussion and live demo exploring how NetDocuments is reshaping legal work through AI and automation.
With over a decade of experience in legal technology, Hayley brought clarity and passion to a topic that’s often surrounded by hype. Her message? AI is no longer a futuristic concept — it’s already here, delivering practical benefits to legal professionals every day.
The Intelligent DMS: A New Standard for Law Firms
NetDocuments has always been ahead of the curve. As a cloud-only platform since 1999 — before the cloud was “cool,” as Hayley joked — it has continually evolved to meet the changing demands of modern legal practice.
Today, that evolution has culminated in what NetDocuments calls the Intelligent Document Management System (DMS). The intelligent DMS integrates AI into the very core of document and knowledge management, turning a firm’s content into actionable insights while maintaining the highest levels of security and compliance.
Hayley compared this shift to buying a smart TV: once upon a time, consumers prioritised screen size and sound. Now, those are basic expectations. What really differentiates modern TVs are the built-in smart features. The same applies to legal tech — basic search and storage functionality is expected. What sets solutions apart today are AI-driven tools like semantic search, automated workflows, and intelligent assistants.
Bringing AI to the Work, Not the Other Way Around
A key design philosophy at NetDocuments is to bring AI to your content — not your content to AI. Many firms are juggling multiple point solutions that disrupt workflows and increase complexity. NetDocuments, by contrast, builds AI directly into the platform where legal professionals already work.
One standout example is the ndMAX Legal AI Assistant, a secure, conversational interface that enables users to interact with documents naturally. Need to summarise a document? Ask the assistant. Want to extract specific data points, like term dates or rent amounts? Ask the assistant. It works like ChatGPT — but is fully integrated, secure, and built specifically for legal teams.
And for firms that have invested in Microsoft Copilot, NetDocuments offers a seamless integration. The assistant can be accessed within the Copilot interface, surfacing document insights across Microsoft 365 tools like Teams and Outlook — another way the platform meets users where they work.
Built for Real Legal Work
What sets the Legal AI Assistant apart is its practical focus. As Hayley explained, it’s designed to answer common legal questions quickly and securely:
- What’s the term of each lease?
- Are there renewal options?
- What’s the rent and how is it reviewed?
All of this happens within NetDocuments secure environment, using a private Microsoft Azure OpenAI instance hosted in Australia. This ensures data stays local, private, and protected — meeting the strictest ethical and legal requirements. The assistant also retains the context of previous conversations, letting users revisit or continue threads over a 90-day period. It’s not just about surfacing answers — it’s about efficiently unlocking knowledge relevant to the task at hand.
From Insights to Action: The App Builder Advantage
But what if your firm needs more than one-off answers? That’s where the ndMAX App Builder comes in. For repeated tasks — like extracting key clauses from contracts or performing compliance checks — firms can build structured apps that automate entire workflows. It’s the perfect complement to the assistant, allowing firms to scale AI use cases and standardise best practices across departments.
Hayley noted that firms getting started with the Legal AI Assistant can take a two-tiered approach for an easy entry point to AI adoption, without overwhelming legal teams or requiring large upfront investments. And then, once familiar, begin building apps tailored to their needs.
A Future That’s Already Here
Throughout the session, Hayley emphasised that none of this is vaporware. Everything she demoed is already live and in use by clients today. Features like semantic search are also on the near-term roadmap — showcasing NetDocuments commitment to continuous innovation.
For law firms seeking to modernise their operations, boost productivity, and enhance client service, NetDocuments offers a compelling solution grounded in security, usability, and real legal outcomes.
As Emma Elliott put it, “This is about practical solutions for everyday practices.” And with NetDocuments, those solutions are not only possible — they’re already making a difference.
Want to see it in action? Visit the ALPMA On-Demand Library to watch the full NetDocuments interview and demo, explore how an intelligent DMS can transform your firm, and help your teams do their best work.
