Not every law firm leader knows whether the tools they’ve invested in are actually working for their team. Artificial intelligence is no exception. Microsoft Copilot is showing up in more legal tech stacks, bundled with Microsoft 365 and promising everything from automated meeting notes to draft emails.
But here’s the problem: just because it’s available doesn’t mean your staff is using it…or using it well.
This is where the cracks start to show. Copilot, for all its power, often gets lost in the daily noise of law firm operations. Attorneys are moving quickly. Support staff stick to what they know. And unless someone is clearly tracking usage, patterns, and outcomes, it’s easy for a firm to fall into a common trap: underutilized tools that quietly drain your budget and never deliver the productivity gains they promised.
Microsoft’s new Copilot Benchmarks dashboard was built to confront this exact issue. Not with vague suggestions, but with side-by-side visibility that tells you how your firm is using Copilot compared to others in your industry and region.
Why Adoption Slips Through the Cracks
Most managing partners and firm administrators don’t have time to manually check whether paralegals are letting Copilot summarize case law, or whether associates are using it to prepare client memos. You might assume the team is using what you’ve provided, especially if it’s included in your Microsoft 365 licensing. But assumption isn’t the same as insight.
And when usage lags? The firm loses time, confidence, and the competitive edge AI can offer. Deadlines feel tighter. Routine tasks still eat into billable hours. That tech investment starts to feel more like a sunk cost.
The underlying reason often isn’t laziness or resistance. It’s lack of clarity. Staff don’t know what Copilot can really do for them. No one’s measuring whether they’re using it. And there’s no clear way to see where support or training is needed, until now.
Benchmarks: A New Kind of Dashboard
The Copilot Benchmarks dashboard does more than log usage statistics. It creates a data-informed map of how your law firm compares to similar organizations using Copilot.
Here’s what it shows:
- Adoption Trends: Who is using Copilot, and how frequently?
- Engagement by Role: Are attorneys leveraging it as much as staff? Are senior users getting the same value as junior ones?
- Feature Usage: Are people using Copilot for real productivity; like drafting, summarizing, and searching, or are they just dabbling?
- Peer Comparisons: How does your firm stack up against others in legal, both regionally and by firm size?
If you crave clarity and control, these benchmarks offer something rare: perspective. Now you can see not only what’s happening in your own backyard, but what’s working in similar firms nearby.
What This Means for Your Firm
If your team isn’t using Copilot, it’s not a failure. It’s a signal. One that says: “They may not understand the value yet.” Or “They might be unsure where to start.” The Benchmarks dashboard gives you the information you need to respond with support, not guesswork.
This could mean targeting short, role-specific trainings. Encouraging peer-led demos from high-usage staff. Or streamlining processes where Copilot could offer immediate relief like meeting prep, document cleanup, or managing Outlook chaos.
For firms working with outsourced IT partners, this dashboard also changes the conversation. You now have a way to hold vendors accountable for enablement, not just implementation. It’s not enough to turn the tool on. You need someone who will help your firm use it meaningfully.
Quiet Confidence Starts with Knowing Where You Stand
Law firms don’t need more software. They need more insight. Copilot Benchmarks takes AI adoption, which is something very abstract, and turns it into something visible, manageable, and actionable.
And for a managing partner who’s tired of wondering if the firm is actually using what they’ve paid for, that’s the first step toward the quiet confidence they’ve been craving.