.webp)
Watch the full webinar recording here →
Meet Our Panelists
- Mark Prince: Solo practitioner at Prince Law Firm in Marion, Illinois with 35+ years of experience
- Tad Thomas: Managing Partner at Thomas Law Offices with 16 attorneys across five offices
- Matt McCarren: COO at Bey and Associates with offices in Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Louisiana
- Jen Raphael: VP of Growth at Supio (Moderator)
Why Leading PI Firms Are Embracing AI
Jen: The title of our webinar is "AI or Die." How do you interpret that, and what would you recommend to someone hesitant to embrace AI?
Tad: While I've been practicing law, there have been three technological revolutions: typewriters to PCs, cloud computing and high-speed internet access, and now AI. Just like you wouldn't keep a typewriter on your desk when you could have a PC, you shouldn't pass up on AI. It's that much of a revolutionary change in what we do. Any firm not adopting it is going to be left behind.
Mark: In Illinois, and most states following the ABA Code of Professional Conduct, we're charged with an obligation to keep up with the latest technology and best ways to deliver legal services to our clients. The competitive disadvantage a non-AI firm will have is staggering. We've been using Supio since the start of the year, and our efficiencies have already increased, which allows us to deliver better, faster results to clients.
Matt: The upside is tremendous. You can take on cases that you otherwise might not have seen value in because the labor was too intensive. For firms with complex practices, AI helps you spend less time and money on cases you end up not taking, which is a huge boost to the bottom line. For a long time, law firms were profitable enough that we lagged behind on technology, but we've hit a tipping point where firms will have to get on board or face falling by the wayside.
Operational Efficiencies Through AI
Jen: One law firm reported cutting case prep time by 75% and adding 10 cases per paralegal after implementing AI. What operational efficiencies have you seen?
Mark: We do a lot of complex litigation - medical malpractice, products liability - all of which is medical-driven. I rely heavily on Supio for medical records summaries because they're very detailed. My assistants have gotten a kick out of how this has changed their lives. Instead of me asking for a summary and then checking in repeatedly, they're now coming to my office saying "I've got that summary done" because they've used the AI.
Matt: We see tremendous efficiency in two ways. With complex cases, the more data you have, the more efficiency you gain. For non-complex cases that might resolve in 6-12 months, time is working against you - the longer it takes, the less impressed clients are with the same result. Any time we can cut off that timeline improves both client satisfaction and ROI. The question becomes: how do we shave time off our process?
Tad: There's a direct cost savings. We used to send out for chronologies, and the cost of using Supio is less than what I was spending just on chronologies for nursing home and medical malpractice cases. Then you get all the other features too. Using Supio reduces experts' time spent working on cases as well. For depositions, I'm not spending less time preparing, but the time is so much more effective - I can come up with better questions and pull out exhibits and documents faster.
Impact on Team Morale and Culture
Jen: Initially, we were concerned paralegals might think they'd be out of jobs, but now they're our biggest power users. How has AI helped with team morale and culture at your firms?
Mark: My paralegals have turned the table on me regarding medical summaries. Instead of me asking where we are, they're asking if I've looked at what they've already completed. It's also changing how we staff our firms - I can probably get by with 1-3 fewer paralegals because Supio does that work in much less time. This saves on the bottom line and helps us stay on top of everything, especially given how hard it is to fill positions with quality people who can do technical legal work.
Matt: Prior to having Supio, when filling support staff positions, we were looking for people with two distinct skillsets: someone who could read through and digest medical records (which is not easy) and who also had great customer service, empathy, and could connect with clients. That's a unicorn. Now that we're on year three with Supio, for some positions we focus much more heavily on empathy and client connection. We've hired former social workers and teachers who know how to connect with people while using Supio for the technical part.
Tad: We're really having to help our team relearn how they work. People still say "I need to do a chronology" and we have to recondition them to look to Supio first for everything. We did a second orientation just last week to show everyone the different types of prompts you can use. It's really excited people as they're understanding the different capabilities and how much you can get out of it.
Why Supio Stands Out Among AI Solutions
Jen: What made Supio stand out among the AI solutions you considered?
Tad: Hallucinations are a big concern with AI. If you ask ChatGPT why the sky is purple today, it doesn't know enough to say the sky isn't purple - it will give you 10 reasons why it's purple even though it's not. Supio is specifically trained in how we work our cases and standards of care, so it knows enough to say "this might not be the right question" or "this answer is not in this data set." It gives much more accurate information than everything else I've tried. Other AI companies might just generate demands or chronologies, but Supio gives you so much more.
Mark: The deep dive feature really sold it for me. I've been fortunate to try a case since we've been using AI, and I could ask questions like "find inconsistencies in all the deposition testimony on issue A" and it would point them out. This helps focus how you draft cross-examinations or direct examinations. Many other companies I looked at didn't have this feature. The timeline it creates also serves as a discussion point with clients, often refreshing their memory about something important they had forgotten to mention. And the demand letter functionality has been incredibly detailed and accurate.
Matt: Two things stand out. First, this is Supio's focus - they're not trying to do different things but are really about understanding medicals for personal injury attorneys. Second, they've evolved over time and really felt more like a partnership, getting feedback from clients and adding more value. From the beginning, that value has increased as they've evolved and incorporated feedback.
Implementation and Onboarding
Jen: Supio provides a dedicated Customer Success Manager, kickoff meeting, foundational training, advanced training, and analytics. What was implementation like for you?
Tad: It was super easy because you're not having to integrate it with other technology in your tech stack. It's a standalone product where you upload cases individually. The training was really helpful. We had certain attorneys who weren't using it as much as I wanted, so we did another Zoom session to show them all the different prompts and capabilities. In just the few months we've been using Supio, they've continuously upgraded. We'd run into a problem, mention it, and within weeks there was a solution.
Mark: I was worried about how hard it would be to implement, but it turned out to be a non-issue. It's as easy as going to the website, signing in, uploading your files, and it's ready to go. The training has been responsive and in-depth. The key point is that you have to use it and play with it - the more you use it, the better your prompts get, and the information from Deep Dive improves in correlation to how good your prompts are.
Matt: Our implementation was with Jerry (Supio's CEO) when there were only about six employees at the company. Recently, I've gotten several emails from our Supio rep asking to get on calls for feedback as they develop new features like drafting complaints and discovery. They're proactively trying to pull us along with new features that will save us time.
Creating Power Users Within Your Firm
Jen: How do you create super users or power users within your firm?
Tad: Every firm should have a Josh [one of Tad's team members]. Josh created standard operating procedures for our firm on Supio, which we've shared with Supio and they share with new firms. Having a point person in the firm who can quickly answer questions is a big advantage. Sometimes lawyers or paralegals might be shy about contacting customer service, but having someone down the hall helps. When attorneys have projects they would typically assign to law clerks, I tell them to ask Josh to upload the case to Supio instead - and five minutes later, we have a finished product.
Life-Changing Use Cases
Jen: What stellar "win" story would you share when telling someone about Supio?
Tad: I've been impressed with how it's been trained on standards of care and can answer questions about how they apply to specific cases, like a nursing home choking death or fall case. I was skeptical and thought AI might get there in 5-10 years, not today. The fact that I can ask about how standards of care apply to a particular case and get highly accurate information is amazing.
Matt: We had a skeptical litigation attorney who hadn't used Supio much. When someone left the firm, he had to pick up a case with only four days to prepare for a mediation that had been in litigation for a couple of years. I loaded everything into Supio, showed him how to use it, and after the mediation, he was blown away. He used the deep dive feature to ask all his prep questions about the injuries and for his opening statement. It saved him so much time because he didn't have to read every document cover to cover.
Also, at least in the states we operate in, the cost of Supio is a pass-through cost to the case if you want it to be. If you consider how many hours each demand draft takes (3-4 hours for a basic demand, several days for complex cases), you're gaining back all that time. What you do with that time is up to you - lighter payroll, more cases per staff member, more client communication, etc.
Medical Chronologies Compared to Other Solutions
Jen: How do you feel Supio's medical chronologies compare to others?
Mark: This feature is outstanding because once you learn how to prompt it, you can use bullet points, dates of treatment, and other formatting that makes summaries easier to read. You can take it further by anticipating defense arguments - "define a gap in treatment as 60 days and point out gaps with each provider." You can take it as far as your creativity allows. I've used other companies where you ship records overseas and get chronologies back, but they don't compare, particularly because with Supio, it cites to the medical record so you can verify with your own eyes.
Tad: When you have a 10,000-page hospital record and want to know a patient's blood pressure at different points in the emergency department, I could word-search through a PDF to try to find that date and hopefully that particular reading. Or I can upload it to Supio and say "what was their blood pressure on January 6th?" and it points me straight to the medical record in seconds versus an hour. Multiply that by however many searches you need to do on a case, and you can see the efficiency.
Matt: You can take it even further by asking for a bulleted list of all blood pressure readings by date, or request a table format of medications that were prescribed, by whom, and when. You can get really detailed, nuanced information that you could export to Excel if needed.
Advice for Those Still Hesitant
Jen: For those still hesitant, what would you recommend as a next step?
Tad: Feel free to email me with questions about how I use it on particular cases or what it can and can't do. I've been teaching technology to lawyers since 2011, and I enjoy talking about technology options with other lawyers.
Mark: Same here - happy to talk about this with anybody.
Matt: Do a demo - it's free. Pick a difficult case with some teeth to it as far as data goes, and just play around with it. I think you'll be surprised. Happy to talk to anybody since every practice is different and there are lots of applications.
Jen: We work with firms of all sizes. Go to supio.com and book a demo. We can schedule that with you and your team members, and we can record it for those who can't attend. Seeing it firsthand means a lot more than just hearing about it.
This post was transcribed and edited from a webinar hosted by Supio featuring personal injury attorneys and legal professionals discussing their experiences with AI implementation.