Global law firm DLA Piper is expanding the reach of its genAI-supported training programme, which it describes as like a ‘legal flight simulator’ – albeit that human experts still play a key role. Artificial Lawyer hears all about the initiative from the firm. See In-depth AL Interview below.
The Advanced Negotiations and Structuring Academy (ANSAi) is DLA’s flagship, proprietary, lawyer-led simulation programme designed to ‘accelerate strategic, commercial, and technological fluency’ as well as ‘help the lawyers become better and stronger negotiators’.
The initiative started last year in the Finance practice and has now been expanded, by popular demand the firm added, to the Employment and Real Estate teams.
And as the firm told this site: ‘As AI displaces traditional junior workflows, firms need new models to accelerate human capability in areas that AI won’t replicate: leadership, ethical clarity, big-picture thinking, and creative negotiation.’
How It Works
Over six weeks, lawyers act as principals negotiating a high-stakes Greenlandic sustainable fuel project. The scenario – generated using genAI – immerses participants in real-world complexity and stakeholder conflict. Speakers from the military, finance, academia, and diplomacy are involved, along with AI augmentation, and structured mentorship.
During the sessions, lawyers act as principal negotiators in a real-time infrastructure project with unique objectives, political tensions, and commercial risks. Crisis negotiator Suzanne Williams QPM and Professor Philip Bond, UK Government adviser on AI, have been involved in the project.
This combination of simulation, AI integration, and cross-disciplinary leadership insights means that ANSAi is ‘redefining legal training’, the firm stated.
AL In-Depth Interview
AL heard from Fredrik Lindblom, Projects partner in DLA Piper’s Finance practice in London, who has played a key role in ANSAi.
Why do this, and why now?
The legal profession is facing a paradigm shift. AI is already taking over certain types of work – and that trend will only accelerate. Many firms are pursuing the ‘faster, better, cheaper’ path through automation. But what’s left behind is arguably more difficult and more valuable: the kind of work that demands clarity, judgement, influence, and the ability to lead through ambiguity and pressure. These are the capabilities clients continue to value.
ANSAi is about staying ahead of that curve – not reacting to it. We want our lawyers to be the best in the market at using AI as an exoskeleton – a strategic enhancer for high-end human capabilities. Not just using AI to save time, but using it to think better, move faster, and make clearer decisions under pressure.
At the same time, ANSAi allows us to actively explore where AI complements human thinking and, just as importantly, where it doesn’t. We’re deliberately training and stress-testing the capabilities we believe AI cannot replace, even partially: judgement, ethical reasoning, influence, and strategic leadership. These will remain the foundation of the legal profession—and we intend to build them harder and smarter than ever before.
2. What are the key components of the training system?
ANSAi is built as a six-week, 150-hour immersive experience. It combines:
A live (virtual), AI-powered simulation where lawyers act as principals in a complex, multi-stakeholder deal
Real-time ambiguity, competing objectives, and shifting alliances—many of them shaped dynamically by AI (both participants as well as faculty works dynamically with Ai as the simulation progresses, both as direct part of training objectives as well as to keep and drive tension, and training points)
A 24/7, 3-day residential phase where lawyers operate under continuous pressure, with face-to-face negotiations
Strategic mentoring from partners and a global faculty of leaders from NATO, the Nobel Committee, crisis negotiation, AI policy, and infrastructure investment
Generative AI tools not as assistants, but as challengers—used to simulate complexity, surface risk, and stress-test decision-making
It’s less like a course, more like a legal flight simulator.
3. Is this a model for training in other areas, as AI will remove paid work for juniors?
As AI displaces traditional junior workflows, firms need new models to accelerate human capability in areas that AI won’t replicate: leadership, ethical clarity, big-picture thinking, and creative negotiation.
ANSAi gives us a scalable model for doing just that. It won’t replace all training – but it sets a new benchmark for how seriously we need to take experiential, AI-integrated capability development.
4. Do you think law firms will eventually have to train all lawyers like this?
Not necessarily all lawyers, but yes – firms that want to stay relevant will have to rethink how they build strategic capability in their people. Traditional legal training models weren’t designed or updated to be relevant for a world where machines ca perform basic thinking tasks.
In the long run, we think training like ANSAi will become a critical differentiator – both for how firms attract talent and how they deliver strategic value to clients.
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Others involved in the extensive project include:
Julia Prescot (Meridiam), Alex Kornman (Macquarie), and Niamh McBreen (Partners Group) on The Art of Dealmaking in an Uncertain World
Berit Reiss-Andersen (former Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee),
General Sir Tim Radford (Former Deputy Commander, NATO),
Professor Nina Caspersen (University of York) on Negotiation, Leadership, and Peace in a Fragmenting WorldSonia McNamara (behavioural strategist and former COO
Lt. Col. Langley Sharp MBE (British Army leadership coach and former SAS operator), who discussed leadership, stress management, and decision-making under pressure.
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Is this a big deal?
DLA isn’t the first organisation to look at using AI to help with lawyer training, Dr Megan Ma at Stanford University’s Codex group has been exploring how to use tech to create legal training simulators for some time. Meanwhile, several legal training companies are also expanding their use of AI in their courses.
But, what’s key here is that this is a major law firm that has grasped the nettle, as it were, i.e. that as more and more routine work gets automated, or partly automated, then what do you train junior lawyers on? The solution many suggest is that the juniors will get accelerated into higher value work. But…..who trains them to do more complex work? How does that even happen?
In this case, DLA is seeking to answer that question and has built out what may turn out to be just one of many, many different training tools combining AI and human experts, that the legal sector will need in the years ahead.
So, kudos to those involved for driving this forward. Whatever happens next with AI, one thing is clear: if uptake of genAI driven legal tools continues at scale, then law firms will have two choices – either greatly reduce the number of junior lawyers they employ, or seek to advance those they have hired to the level where they can handle more complex matters that are not so easy to automate.
Of course, there is an interesting paradox here, which is that if you can use AI to model and simulate more complex matters, then it’s only a matter of time before those areas see significant automation as well…..But, automating complex negotiations is a long way off……for now.
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