Participating in Microsoft’s innovation accelerator didn’t just help K&L Gates and a team encompassing personnel from Perkins Coie, Greenberg Traurig and Davis Wright Tremaine break down walls between lawyers and specialists within their firms. The experience also helped dissolve similar barriers between Microsoft’s law department and the rest of its business, giving the law firms a better perspective on how they can more broadly serve the high-profile client.

Perkins Coie, Greenberg Traurig and Davis Wright—collectively known as “the trio”—and K&L Gates were the 2020 winners in a competition involving nine teams who proposed ideas to improve Microsoft’s legal and business operations. Perkins Coie senior practice innovations manager Amy Monaghan and K&L Gates matter planning associate director Bethany Knoblauch spoke about the process Tuesday alongside two Microsoft representatives at a LegalWeek(year) 2021 webinar moderated by Gina Passarella, editor-in-chief of global legal brands at ALM.