In The American Lawyer, Ropes & Gray's TrAIlblazer Cup Featured as Innovative AI Training Competition for Summer and First-Year Associates

Ropes & Gray's AI-themed competition, the TrAIlblazer Cup, was spotlighted in an article in The American Lawyer. The program pairs summer associates and first-year associates to build working AI solutions for real-world legal workflows.

The article quoted asset management partner and policy committee member Elizabeth Reza, chief legal talent officer Amy Ross, and director of legal knowledge management Patrick Ryan. Elizabeth described how making the work fully billable reinforced its importance. “It reflects our commitment to the importance of AI. By giving them the credit there from a billable hours perspective, it put it on the same page as all the other work that they’re doing and reinforced that message.”

The tournament consists of 25 teams across all seven of the firm's U.S. offices. “It gave the summer associates great exposure to lawyers throughout the U.S, and I think they learned a lot, but did it by having fun, which I think is a really important part of what we’re trying to do, to show them how exciting this opportunity can be for them,” said Amy.

The AI use cases developed through the tournament will also be incorporated into workflows for the firm's broader use. "It’s something that will benefit the whole team and our clients,” said Elizabeth. “We see ways that this is going to be used going forward, and even for the teams that didn’t progress, there’s still sort of a feedback loop process and learning from the overall ideas that they’ve put forward about areas that could benefit from AI and innovation.”