Thompson Hine announced that it is the only firm outside the Am Law 75 shortlisted in the categories Regulatory, Governance, and Compliance Technology and Best Tech Training Program Implementation in ALM’s Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards, which recognize outstanding achievement in advancing legal services through technology.
These distinctions spotlight the firm’s sustained investment in practical, client-centered innovation that enhances legal service quality, efficiency, and risk management.
Thompson Hine’s status as the only firm not among the Am Law 75 to be shortlisted in either category is a testament to the firm’s momentum and innovative strength. The other finalists, predominantly Am Law 50 firms, include Latham & Watkins; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Reed Smith; Ropes & Gray; and Seyfarth Shaw for Regulatory, Governance, and Compliance Technology, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; Debevoise & Plimpton; Latham & Watkins; Morgan Lewis; and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe for Best Tech Training Program Implementation.
The firm is recognized in the Regulatory, Governance, and Compliance Technology category for Cognitext, its AI-powered tool and workflow that helps attorneys and clients proactively identify and remediate potential legal risks in public-facing website content. It analyzes targeted terms in context, suggests context-appropriate replacements, and maintains an audit trail, enabling faster and more accurate legal review. Cognitext was developed to help clients respond to fast-evolving regulatory environments by facilitating the efficient review of dense legacy website content for issues spanning employee benefits language, online terms and policies, potential exposure to foreign laws, advertising and FTC compliance, IP risk, and older bylined materials. By pairing a firm-created technology tool with attorney refinement in matter-specific contexts, Cognitext supports proactive risk assessment across a wide range of industries and regulatory regimes, with generative AI-prompted solutions to reduce identified risks.
In the Best Tech Training Program Implementation category, Thompson Hine’s finalist nod comes for its firmwide, end-to-end AI training and literacy program that equips lawyers and professional staff at every level to use AI responsibly and effectively in client work. This multimodal program, anchored by a technology-based AI Center that centralizes risk guidance, policies, and resources, includes mandatory pre-use training, ongoing skills development through the SmartPaTHTM AI Institute, curated prompt libraries and vetted use cases, scheduled office hours with firm and vendor experts, and tailored onboarding for each approved tool. The program also received recognition from the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards North America, where the firm was named a finalist in the Innovation in AI Strategy category for its firmwide generative AI professional development initiative.
To reinforce applied learning, Thompson Hine conducted a firmwide AI “design sprint” pairing associates with senior lawyers to craft practical, AI-enabled workflows tuned to real practice challenges spanning early-stage research and drafting through post-closing knowledge capture. These efforts launched unique, bespoke workflows after careful vetting and have driven sustained adoption. Early program metrics reflect strong, peer-led growth, including a more than tenfold annual increase in both active users and prompt volume.
These distinctions also reflect the firm’s focus on building real, practice-ready tools for use in active client work. In the fall, Thompson Hine was named a finalist in the ThinkAdvisor 2025 Luminaries Awards in the law firm industry disruption/innovation category for its AI-powered Fund in a Box toolset, a technology-enabled solution that streamlines the end-to-end legal process for launching and documenting emerging investment funds, combining proprietary resources, market-calibrated templates, and AI-enabled workflows to accelerate timelines and reduce costs for emerging managers.
With these latest recognitions, the firm maintains its decade-long status as a leader in legal technology and innovation. Its innovation program is grounded in SmartPaTH – a disciplined approach that combines process, technology, and data to drive accuracy, predictability, and client-aligned outcomes.