The initiative came as the renowned BigLaw firm, founded in 1865, has been slowly shifting its long-held data storage policy from a mostly on-premises setup into one that increasingly incorporates cloud computing.
Similar to some legacy law firms, Ropes & Gray's technology capabilities used to be limited to areas such as email and machine learning for e-discovery. The firm introduced summer associates to these technologies each year through training sessions.
But in 2023, Ropes & Gray began testing generative AI, a type of AI capable of creating original content.
This wasn't just a technology shift, but rather a cultural shift, according to Edward Black, senior counsel and technology strategy leader with Ropes & Gray.
"Suddenly you've got this kind of 'bionic lawyer,'" Black told Law360 Pulse. "Running faster, better output, lower cost."
For Ropes & Gray, the possibilities of generative AI meant a redefinition of its legal service model to include what Black calls "the best of humans plus the best of machines."
However, taking full advantage of generative AI's capabilities requires cloud computing, which involves the remote storage of data. This is different from Ropes & Gray's long-standing policy of keeping data on-premises, sometimes called on-prem, meaning it runs on servers in the firm's own location. Most legal AI tools on the market require cloud computing.
Black said the firm cannot migrate all its data to the cloud due to cybersecurity concerns and because of instructions from some clients to avoid the cloud.
"We are not as much in the cloud as we would like to be," Black said. "However, we are migrating to the cloud at a pace that makes sense for us."
Ropes & Gray's new cloud strategy is to migrate to the cloud only when it's absolutely required to access the best technologies safely. For example, the firm uses the legal AI tool Harvey through the cloud.
R2G2, Ropes & Gray's proprietary internal chatbot, operates as a hybrid where the AI processing is performed in the cloud, specifically utilizing Microsoft Azure-based OpenAI services. The remainder of the application and its data storage are on premises. Further measures are put in place to prevent the exposure of sensitive data to the public internet.
Ropes & Gray started to use AI on live client matters, except for clients that prohibit it, according to Black.
Training Summer Associates in AI
One spot the firm found to be a relatively easy space to use cloud-based tech was with its summer associates. This was the first year that Ropes & Gray had generative AI as a core curriculum requirement for its summer associates. There were over 170 summer associates in 2025 and all learned AI.
A key component of Ropes & Gray's summer AI training was its immersive "tech jams," where associates learned about the firm's legal AI platforms through hands-on training.
Peter Rahe, a law degree candidate at Georgetown University Law Center and summer associate with Ropes & Gray, told Law360 Pulse that he didn't get a chance to learn how to use AI legal platforms in law school. He found the "tech jams" at Ropes & Gray helpful in his development.
The summer associate training program also included real-world applications of AI, where practice groups were assigned real legal projects that encouraged the use of generative AI.
As a summer associate in Ropes & Gray's litigation group, Rahe said he used AI to get research done faster. For example, Rahe had a project that involved the apex deposition doctrine, which shields high-level executives from being deposed in certain cases. Rahe used the AI tools to quickly find a good case that was related to the matter.
The firm said its summer associates learned skills such as prompt engineering. They used AI for tasks such as document summarization, contract review and due diligence.
Some in the legal industry have raised concerns that law firms using generative AI for review work means that junior associates might have fewer opportunities to learn how to review hundreds of documents in a case.
"If we can produce a higher-quality final deliverable to the client by using an AI tool rather than using a human, we're going to do it," Black said.
Black added that with AI giving an initial summary of a matter with hundreds of documents, associates are in a better position to review the main points of all the documents sooner, instead of just the few that they were forced to read. This increases the maturity of junior associates, according to Black.
Rahe said using the AI to review documents is a positive for associates.
"It increases idea generation," Rahe said. "It can increase strategy, reduce error, and I think that's a significant value add to the client."
Rahe added that AI allows associates to learn at a higher level quicker, so that they can do what they were actually taught to do in law school — think like a lawyer.
--Editing by Robert Rudinger.
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