At Haynes Boone, working with generative AI is treated as a core lawyering competency, not just a tool to roll out. A continually evolving blend of on-demand video and hands-on workshops, supported by Hotshot, is how the firm trains for it.

Tony Capecci has a favorite way of explaining why generative AI broke his firm's old training playbook.

"Haynes Boone has always had a pretty robust training function, with frequent, constant technology training for all our people," says Capecci, the firm's Director of Practice Innovation. "But AI is something different. You're asking people to interact with technology in a new and novel way."

Ordinary software training teaches you the interface, the what-to-click-and-how. AI demands more. "You also have to train on it conceptually," Capecci says. "Because if somebody gets access without the proper guidance, it's like handing them the keys to a Lamborghini and saying, 'Have fun on the track.' They don't know to slow into the corners, or where the brakes are. It can be dangerous."

That realization came early, and from the top. A directive from managing partner Taylor Wilson tasked Capecci and the firm's COO with building a "living, breathing" program rather than a one-time push. "He recognized this as new foundational technology. It's not going away," Capecci recalls. "The question was, how do we get there safely?"

Rather than build it all in-house, Capecci went looking for a partner who could supply the foundation. A chance introduction at last summer's ILTA conference led him to Hotshot. "We're a small team. I didn't want to spend hours upon hours creating and testing content," he says. "Some providers were just starting to think about it. Hotshot was already doing it." Hotshot became the firm's provider of choice for generative AI training.

Why AI Training Can't Be a Checklist

For Tim Newman, a partner at Haynes Boone and a member of its AI committee, the urgency was obvious. "We recognized early that generative AI was transforming the practice of law, and we wanted our lawyers at the forefront, not playing catch-up," he says. "We view it as a core competency now, not a nice-to-have."

The hard part is that the target keeps moving. "The tools release new features every week. It can't be one and done," Capecci says. So, the program trains on the tools, their risks, and their limits all at once. Newman puts it this way: "Incorporating AI into your practice isn't susceptible to a checklist. Because it's constantly evolving, you must develop the skill of interacting with it. It's more about teaching lawyers how to interact with AI than telling them what they can do with it today."

The Blend: On-Demand Foundations, Hands-On Practice

The program runs on two layers. The first is on demand. Hotshot's videos, which cover how the technology works, what its limits are, and how to use it responsibly, lay the foundation. The firm assigns them out and keeps them available so lawyers can build a baseline at their own pace, around billable work. That self-paced layer handles the level-setting, which frees up scarce in-person time for what only in-person time can do.

The second layer is getting people together for experiential, hands-on practice. "There's no better way to combine the tech and the concept of AI than sitting in a room and having an active, engaging workshop," Capecci says. The live sessions are for exactly that: fingers on the keyboard, working through realistic scenarios rather than watching a lecture. It works for a lean team because the heavy lifting is already done. "Having the content packaged and ready is invaluable," he says. "Here's a package of files. Scenarios, samples, a guide, a worksheet. You just book a conference room and do it."

The materials are platform-agnostic, but in practice the firm runs them on Harvey, the AI tool it uses day to day. That is deliberate, Capecci says, because you can't train on the content without also training on the tool itself, so a session ends up training on Harvey and the underlying concepts together.

Inside the Workshops

The operational lift, Capecci insists, is light. His team reads the materials, sends a simple invitation to a given office for a session on a specific topic, such as an introduction to generative AI or client communications, and makes signing up as easy as replying to the email. He keeps the rooms small, with 15 to 20 people as the sweet spot. "That classroom size fosters a good environment for open conversation," he says. "When the office's managing partner encourages people to attend, it fills up in a heartbeat." Delivery stays deliberately loose. "It's better if it's not rigid," he says. "You read the room and let that dictate how you run it."

The workshops aren't only for lawyers. Business professionals take part too. The firm also sorts participants by experience level, into beginner, novice, intermediate, and expert, with a goal of pulling everyone up a rung this year, and it welcomes advanced users to sit in as an extra resource. "We love when lawyers like Tim join. He's using AI all day, so he can be a coach in the room, and having partners in the trainings adds credibility." Newman sees part of his role as setting a tone. "You read about hallucinations and sanctions, and it makes people nervous," he says. "Our message is that if you use it responsibly, double-checking your work and taking ownership of it, it's a really valuable tool. We want lawyers to feel encouraged and empowered, and to know they have the firm's support."

Capecci's favorite moments are the ones he can't schedule. In one client-communications session, an exercise asked participants to turn rough notes from a call with a general counsel into a recap email. A senior paralegal reported that the AI's draft was accurate but too long and rambly. Capecci told her to type everything she'd just said into the tool, word for word, the way she'd talk to a human. A few minutes later she came back: "Way better." It happens at nearly every session, he says. "Every single time we do one of these in person, you see the lightbulbs go off, even with people who use AI regularly."

Making It Their Own

Hotshot made a deliberate choice not to send trainers into firms, and that suits Haynes Boone exactly. The value is in the firm's own people standing at the front of the room, with their own policies and war stories. "The Hotshot materials are better than most because they're focused on the legal industry, not general tech training, so we can take them and make them our own," Newman says. "But it's just as important that we're sending summers and our full-time lawyers the message that this is something the firm values."

For Capecci, a partner champion is non-negotiable. "Having an expert like Tim on board is of utmost importance. He has the firm history and the subject-matter expertise to know how the road is paved." It has become a reflex. When Hotshot released a new M&A workshop, the first thing Capecci did was send the files to one of the firm's M&A partners and ask whether they should run it as is or tailor it first. The same with Hotshot’s new Litigation workshop.

Training the Next Generation: The Summer Associate AI Competency Project

This summer, Haynes Boone extended the model to its incoming class, with a notable shift. "Last summer, we chose not to give summer associates access to our firm-approved AI tools. A lot of firms were gun-shy then," Capecci says. "This summer's different. We're giving them access, with clear parameters and guardrails."

The vehicle is the firm's Summer Associate AI Competency Project, which applies the on-demand philosophy directly. The team took Hotshot's client-communications workshop and refactored it into a self-paced assignment. A short kickoff call introduces the fictional client, the rules of engagement, and Harvey, the tool they'll use. Then summers draft a package of client-facing emails and complete an exercise-observations guide, with two weeks to do it. The review has teeth. "A lawyer reviews the client-facing emails to decide whether they could actually go to a client as is, and our AI trainers review the observations worksheet. We built a scoring rubric for both," Capecci says. "I can't wait to read those observation guides. I think we'll learn a lot."

Newman built the exemplar that anchors the cyber-incident scenario, drawing on his own practice. "I built an example employee FAQ, ran it through our AI tools, marked it up, and flagged for the review team what they might see from the AI that wouldn't be appropriate, and what the summers should double-check," he says. "There are nuances in cybersecurity you'd miss if you don't practice in the area." The class itself spans the full range. Some summers were trained well in law school. Others have never opened a tool, which is exactly what the self-paced Hotshot content is for.

Scaling It Across the Firm

A year ago, Capecci estimates, adoption at strong firms might have topped out around half their lawyers. The rest have now caught the signal. "Clients expect it, and they're seeing their peers do compelling things," he says. "There's a sense of; we need to get on this train." The result is a steady churn of ideas, more than the innovation team can easily process, which is part of why the firm is hiring.

Increasingly, the practice groups generate that demand themselves. "In a practice-group meeting, someone will take ten minutes to demo how they're using AI, and out of that come new workflows, and sometimes new workshop needs, that grow organically out of the practice," Capecci says.

Newman's group is the template. The White-Collar Investigations team pulled together a list of ten to twelve repeatable tasks: building an investigation plan, drafting witness-interview outlines and summaries, producing a final report. The group is working through them systematically with the innovation team, demoing each workflow at practice-group meetings as it matures. "We can tell our colleagues this isn't just raw AI output. It's something we've developed over four to six weeks, making sure it asks the right questions and looks at the right documents," he says. "Some of our early naysayers are a lot more on board now." His lesson for scaling is that every practice group needs a lawyer who will own the process. "Knowing how to click 'go' is a start, but to really integrate AI, you need subject-matter experts making sure the tools add value."

Advice for Other Innovation Teams

Capecci's guidance comes down to a few hard-won lessons. Lean on external partners for the foundational content so your small team can spend its time where it's irreplaceable. Protect a dedicated training function from the pull of every new tool. Recruit partner champions who can make shared content their own. And measure adoption for both breadth and depth.

For all the structure, the part Capecci keeps coming back to is simpler. Watching those lightbulbs go off, he says, is one of his favorite parts of the job, and he knows it won't stay novel forever. "So, I'm going to enjoy it while I can."

Hotshot can work with your firm or company to implement experiential and on-demand AI training for your team. Contact us at info@hotshotlegal.com or learn more at www.hotshotlegal.com.