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In today's rapidly evolving legal landscape, staying ahead of technological and operational innovations is crucial for legal professionals across all sectors. To help you navigate this changing terrain, we're continuing our vLex Innovator Q&A Series, featuring conversations with leaders who are driving transformation in the legal industry through their innovative approaches to law, technology, and client service.

After our interview with Rachel Shields Williams, we're thrilled to share the fourth interview in our series – the vLex Innovator Q&A Series with previous winners of the prestigious Fastcase 50 award. This time, we sit down with Ilona Logvinova, Director of Practice Innovation at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP.

Ilona is an experienced innovation leader and AI expert with a unique background spanning cutting-edge technology, data privacy, intellectual property, cybersecurity, knowledge management, and complex commercial engagements. As Cleary Gottlieb's Director of Practice Innovation, she's architecting and implementing innovation transformation journeys while reimagining the practice of law to position legal as a true strategic partner. Her career journey includes leadership roles at McKinsey & Company, where she served as Head of Innovation for McKinsey Legal, and experience at major corporations including Mastercard and leading law firms.

In our conversation with vLex's Chief Strategy Officer, Ed Walters, Ilona discusses her philosophy on AI as a wellness enabler, the shift from use cases to enablement, and her predictions for the legal industry in 2025.

Watch the full interview with Ilona Logvinova

AI as the Path to Professional Wellness and Human-Centered Practice

One of the most compelling aspects of Ilona's approach to legal innovation is her connection between AI adoption and attorney wellness – a conversation that becomes even more meaningful during Mental Health Awareness Month. Her vision for the legal profession extends far beyond efficiency gains to fundamental improvements in quality of life.

"When I was practicing, when I was first an associate and going through the ranks, I always had this vision of being a lawyer plus. I never wanted to just practice. I always wanted to do more," Ilona reflects. "And I just thought that the profession could be so much better and so much more fun. Lawyers work so hard and we don't do very well with wellness in our profession. It's not a secret. There's a lot that can be better about lifestyle and lifestyle management and a focus on just a holistic sense of wellness."

This vision of transformation became actionable when AI entered the mainstream. "When AI came to the forefront and when transformation became something that was actually achievable, I saw that opportunity. And so this is what makes me so excited to be at a firm right now, especially a firm like Cleary, where that opportunity is actionable and that you can actually strategy map to understand how to reach that opportunity and do well by your people at the organization while also maximally serving your clients with a really high standard of excellence."

Ilona's philosophy represents a fundamental shift in how we think about legal technology – not just as a tool for productivity, but as a mechanism for reclaiming the humanity in legal practice. "There's no treatise on innovation and how that comes forward. But that to me is the most exciting part because there is certainly falsifiability in this line of work and you can see where it doesn't work and where strategies aren't the right strategies. But I wholeheartedly believe that the strategy that we are pursuing really in the name of client centricity and in the name of our people is the right one. And so much of it is really powered by AI."

Ed Walters captured the significance of this perspective: "That's really inspiring. I don't think I've heard anyone else in such a concise and compelling way, connect automation of grinding tasks to wellness, to protecting the humanity of the people who are doing these jobs."

Ilona's response reveals the core of her innovation philosophy: "I think that AI can make us more human. And there's all this talk out there about the robots taking over and Ray Kurzweil's singularity. Is that so near? Is it far? Right. I actually think that we should invite it to move closer to us because the more that we can leverage AI in a way that is really thoughtful and really optimal, the more that we get our humanity back."

Beyond Use Cases: AI as Universal Enablement

Rather than getting caught up in the traditional approach of identifying specific use cases, Ilona advocates for a more fundamental shift toward thinking about AI as universal enablement. This perspective represents a mature understanding of how transformative technology can be integrated into daily practice.

"My recommendation across the board, and I say this to everyone I meet internally and externally, just start playing around with it. Because I don't think in 2022 and even 2023, we were all talking about use cases and what are the identified use cases that we can focus on. It's no longer about use cases. It's really just about enablement. AI is just a really smart way to do things faster, right? It can analyze things, it can do things for you."

Ilona illustrates this philosophy with practical examples from her daily workflow: "Basic things that I do with AI for our enterprise versions, of course, not public domain tools, but I would just have it organize my notes for me and have it elevate three strategic takeaways and actionable items. And maybe I send that to leadership, or maybe I send that to a small cohort of people that need to see it. But just small things like that, something that would take me 15, 30 minutes to do, depending on who the audience is. And that really adds up during the day."

The key insight in Ilona's approach is the shift from creation to curation: "The biggest uphill battle I think for any of us is doing that first draft. The blank page is the greatest arch nemesis. We don't want the blank page. So if we can just edit, and if we can find a way to be editors and really thoughtful editors with a really great starting point, or even an okay starting point, I think that's already such a leg up."

This enablement philosophy extends beyond individual productivity to organizational transformation: "I would start thinking about use of AI in that way, rather than use cases. It's really just about baseline enablement across the board. And even if the first draft isn't terrific, you've got a lot of options. You can edit it. You can ask for automation or AI to put together a second draft with comments."

The Evolving Client-Firm Relationship in an AI-Driven World

Drawing from her experience on both the client and law firm sides, Ilona provides unique insights into how AI is reshaping the fundamental relationship between legal service providers and their clients. Her perspective reveals both the pressures and opportunities that AI creates in this dynamic.

"I think clients will look to law firms to offer best in class service, really sharp, nuanced guidance to figure out how to get up to speed on that guidance. And what I'm starting to see is that I think clients will look to law firms and law firms where they're sort of further ahead of this in terms of thinking about it, in terms of guidance on the AI points and considerations."

This shift creates both urgency and opportunity for law firms: "I think law firms really have to get it right. Right now, we have to be competitive and we have to think about how to best position ourselves to be leaders in this space."

For corporate legal departments, the challenge is different but equally pressing: "I think corporate clients have some time to figure it out because for corporate departments, it's a volume question. If they're not equipped with AI, they will just get hit with a larger volume from an intake perspective because the business units will inevitably start to embed AI into however they're working. And so then the corporate legal department will just be at capacity much faster if they don't keep pace with the business."

The expectation for AI integration has become a baseline requirement rather than a competitive advantage: "Our clients, rightfully so, are starting to anticipate and expect that we'll embed AI in a thoughtful way. Because why wouldn't it be? And I think about visiting the doctor's office and getting an x-ray. Why wouldn't I want AI to share insights on that x-ray? I mean, there are so many things that we expect to be best in class and legal services is no different."

As Ed Walters notes, forward-thinking law firms now find themselves in an advisory role not just on legal matters, but on AI strategy itself: "I think forward-thinking law firms, to your point, really have an interesting role in guiding their clients in use of AI as well, because corporate legal departments don't have time to try all the tools, but they would love to have a law firm guide them through the adoption of things that have worked for the firm."

Ilona's Predictions for 2025 and Beyond

Looking toward the future, Ilona shared three compelling predictions that reveal her deep understanding of both current technology trajectories and the broader evolution of professional services.

The Year of Agents and Hybrid Workforce

"2025, I think this is really the year of agents. I think this is really the year of the hybrid workforce, where we embed verticalized agents into the way that we work for specific use cases. And how the way that we program those agents will really impact how we run our businesses, both on the practice of law side and on the business of law side."

Ilona envisions sophisticated agent architectures that will transform legal workflows: "Agent infrastructures and architectures are really interesting to me. So you can have a series of agents doing different things. You can have a supervisory agent managing those agents, and then you can have a human layer on top of that."

The timeline for this transformation is aggressive but realistic: "People are talking about it now. I think we'll start to see some sandboxing in Q3. I think by Q4, we'll see some of this as truly tangibly actionable and deployed."

The Emergence of Next-Generation Technologies

"I don't know if this is specifically 2025, but looking further downstream, maybe 2026, maybe even 2027, emerging technologies outside of AI will start to come to the forefront more. So now virtual reality is, it feels far away and it feels futuristic, but really the barrier to entry there is just the clunkiness of the tech."

Ilona anticipates that improvements in hardware will unlock new possibilities: "The goggles sort of hurt your nose and they're not so comfortable and they're big and they weigh a lot, but the glasses are coming. And once we start to have wearable tech that can enable VR or 3D representation in video screens, right? So interactivity enabled by VR, collaboration enabled by VR, the way that we interact will continue to evolve and change."

This evolution builds on current trends toward virtual inclusion: "We already see that Zoom meetings are pretty much standard across the board and hybrid meetings where a group of people is in person and then a group of people is on the screen. There's a lot of inclusivity, right? Virtual inclusivity that we haven't seen before. And so I think that will just continue to take shape and we will just have much more seamless interaction across analytics and digital, enabled by technology."

AI Moving to Background Infrastructure

"And I think that's the third piece of it, right, that AI will continue to move from the foreground and from being applied kind of use case by use case and tool by tool to being part of a back end infrastructure that's really powering kind of how everything is working across the board within an organization and more broadly."

This prediction suggests a maturation of AI technology where its presence becomes invisible but ubiquitous – powering everything from the emerging VR collaboration tools to the agent architectures that will define the hybrid workforce of the future.

Looking Forward

Our conversation with Ilona Logvinova offers a compelling vision of legal practice transformation that goes far beyond simple efficiency gains. Her emphasis on wellness, human-centered design, and the thoughtful integration of AI provides a roadmap for legal professionals looking to not just survive but thrive in an AI-enhanced future.

Ilona's journey from traditional legal practice through various innovation roles to her current position at Cleary Gottlieb demonstrates how diverse experiences can inform a holistic approach to legal innovation. Her predictions for 2025 and beyond suggest a future where AI enables rather than replaces human expertise, where legal professionals can focus on their highest-value contributions, and where the practice of law becomes both more effective and more humane.

Connect with Ilona on LinkedIn to follow her ongoing work in legal innovation.

Stay tuned for our next interview in the vLex Innovator Q&A Series, where we'll speak with Kenton Brice, Director of the Law Library and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma, to continue exploring the frontiers of legal innovation.

Authored By

Jeff Cox