Lexpert magazine features articles and columns on developments in legal practice management, deals and lawsuits of interest in Canada, the law and business issues of interest to legal professionals and businesses that purchase legal services.
Issue link: https://digital.carswellmedia.com/i/1547047
34 www.canadianlawyermag.com TOP 25 MOST INFLUENTIAL LAWYERS 2026 an organization that's been successful for over 100 years without one. Legal departments are often seen as the "department of no," and we would never have been invited into the conversations that mattered if we couldn't demonstrate the value we could create. So before I built the processes, I focused on relationships. With my background as a nurse, understanding the business of caring helped. The role wasn't to impose legal rules, it was making sure our advice practically resonated with the people we were giving it to. Rather than building a traditional legal department, we built a strategic advisory function that integrates legal, privacy, compliance, enterprise risk, and governance leading to great innovation. The biggest lesson was earning influence without relying on the authority I carried, and helping people see legal as a strategic partner rather than a gatekeeper. Q: Your AI-powered contract review system is aiming for up to an 80 percent reduction in processing time. What has building that system taught you about where AI helps in legal work, and where it doesn't? A: Technology should augment human judgment, it can't replace it, that's not the goal. We're a big organization without a long- standing in-house legal function, and our contracts are complex, vendor relationships, government-led work, broad scope. AI is really good at repetitive, struc- tured work, identifying clauses, comparing versions, and it means my team spends less time searching for information and stake- holders can access things directly instead of routing everything through our department. Where AI doesn't help is understanding orga- nizational culture, commercial priorities, or the nuances that come from the trust we've built with a business partner. One unexpected lesson from the pilot was that AI is actually more about change manage- ment than the technology itself. The hardest question isn't whether AI can do something; it's how we redesign operations to achieve the highest value while staying accountable for our decisions. In healthcare, that question carries even more weight, because trust is founda- tional, and we have an obligation to be trans- parent about when and how we're using it. Q: You've expanded the legal pillar at SE Health to include patient experience. What made you think that function belonged under legal in the first place? A: Patient experience is the more natural fit of the two. When someone is dissatis- fied with their care, having them complain directly to the people delivering that care creates a power imbalance, it's not natural. They need an objective party, and a legal department is well positioned to provide that objectivity. Alternative dispute resolu- tion rests nicely there too, strategic writing, good investigation, follow-up, records reten- tion – these are all legal processes at their core. I think the duality of my background as a nurse and a lawyer helped make that case, because there's an inherent trust that comes from understanding the business itself. Q: You came into this role with a nursing background as well as a legal one. What's a decision you've made as a lawyer that you think you'd have made differently without the nursing background? A: As a lawyer without a healthcare back- ground, I don't think I would have had the depth of knowledge to critically analyze what's happening and help the organization the way I've been able to. We're creating SE Health's first social impact venture fund, and from a legal perspective, setting up a fund is something you can do anywhere, you can outsource that. But creating a fund with the impact we're looking for, with the value proposi- tion built in from the ground up, and being able to articulate that to attract the right investors, that's different, and I can do that because of the awareness my nursing back- ground gives me. CHANGEMAKERS Paul Saunders SKATING TO WHERE THE PUCK IS GOING Chief strategy and innovation officer and partner, Stewart McKelvey, Halifax, NS Paul Saunders is chief strategy and innova- tion officer and partner at Stewart McKelvey in Halifax, NS, named one of Canadian Lawyer's Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada for 2026 in the Changemakers category. When Stewart McKelvey became the first large Canadian law firm to publicly announce a firm-wide rollout of Legora across all six of its offices, the decision looked sudden from the outside. Paul Saunders says it wasn't. He's spent 11 years in his role building the case for adapt- ability, and the AI pitch drew directly on that decade of groundwork rather than standing as a single business case. "There were a whole bunch of nodding heads in the room, because this wasn't the first time they'd heard this. The technology was different, but we'd really embedded into the DNA of our firm this idea that we need to be adapting," he says. Saunders assembled the cross-functional team behind the rollout, ran a 58-person pilot, and secured buy-in from the Partner- ship Board by tying the decision directly to the firm's Strategic Plan. He personally led in-person training sessions across all six offices as hundreds of lawyers began incor- porating the tool into daily practice. Compensation as the real test of strategy Saunders has spent years redesigning Stewart McKelvey's compensation and profitability frameworks, work he calls unglamorous but foundational. SPECIAL REPORT