Michael Perry is Chief Operations Officer of Dinsmore & Shohl, a law firm operating nationwide across the US.
Interview with Michael Perry, COO at Dinsmore & Shohl.
We interviewed Michael Perry, COO at Dinsmore & Shohl, as part of our latest Quarterly Legal Report on the importance of adapting to market evolution within the legal industry.
Michael Perry is Chief Operations Officer of Dinsmore & Shohl, a law firm operating nationwide across the US.
The leadership mindset has to move away from static, in-efficient processes, toward something far more dynamic and adaptive - because the market is changing faster than many firms know how to adapt.
That is a big part of our (Dinsmore’s) push this year: how we have hired, how we have restructured our administrative teams to support the Partnership, built out our data office, and the creation of our innovation committee. We have invested in a number of different AI tools that we’re actively piloting because we realize that what got us here is not going to get us where we are going. A lot of firms may get caught flat-footed lacking a modernization strategy, and as a result, be less willing to try new approaches or different ways to execute their body of work.
Education is key. We bring our partners together throughout the year – Partner and Associate retreats in the summer, and Dinsmore Day every fall, where we discuss key themes for the year, such as reviewing financial results, growth
opportunities, and AI innovation. We also meet every week, alternating between the board and executive committee, and a portion of that meeting is devoted to current events and how macro conditions are affecting the legal market and the
clients we serve. Once people have that baseline knowledge and shared consciousness of what we’re pursuing, they can understand their role in the larger mission - why we are running AI pilots, investing in core systems, or exploring mergers to strengthen our presence in certain markets. Step one is always education and open communication.
The biggest topic we discuss constantly is how to deliver exceptional value for services rendered and achieving savings through legal innovation - changing how we perform the work, because clients are ultimately looking for more efficient delivery of legal services through the use of AI and technology, without compromising quality. When AI first entered the mainstream conversation, clients broadly fell into two camps: some said do not use it at all, concerned about their data entering a publicly available training model; others wanted to pilot with us and drive efficiency through modernization together. We’re actively partnering with the latter camp on multiple projects that will shape our direction as a Firm. We acknowledge the traditional billable-hour model is going to fundamentally change over time for certain practices, much as it did after the 2008 financial crisis, when the industry challenged the value of the billable hour model and in certain areas, started moving more towards alternative fee arrangements. We expect to see more pressure on the billable hour model and aim to find new and innovative ways to deliver value efficiently, without sacrificing quality, through the collective efforts of our client pilot and Innovation Committee programs.
It is a genuinely collaborative exercise where the client is part of the journey, because we recognize the value of having their fingerprints on our modernization strategy - it is their work and their product. I think clients get excited when they see these tools in action and can partner with hardworking people who genuinely care about delivering excellent value rather than simply billing more hours. Advancements in legal technology and AI may cannibalize low-value work in the eyes of the client. We may lose aggregate hours on an invoice, but we hope that through delivering exceptional value more efficiently, we gain access to more work as a full service firm.
The most important qualities I look for is self-awareness and honesty - specifically, a leader's ability to reflect and understand within the organization what is going to work and what is not. It takes someone knowledgeable not only about the legal industry but about the culture of the firm and its appetite for change. When I first arrived, I had perhaps a hundred different ideas: roughly a third were right on point, another third were genuinely good ideas, but the firm was not yet ready for them, the final third simply did not translate the way I had imagined from my background in the technology sector. You can have all the great ideas in the world, but without self-awareness and cultural understanding of how to lead teams through dynamic change, it is very hard to build a coalition and drive meaningful transformation. It requires patience, and the people around you help keep you honest.
My background is that of a generalist with deep operational roots. After graduating from West Point and serving as an Army Officer for six years, I moved through technology sales, IT service delivery, software operations, implementation, and finance – so I was uniquely positioned to bring experience across almost every function I now manage, albeit from different industries. That breadth gave me empathy for the different teams I lead, whether that is business development, HR, finance, or IT. I knew enough to know what questions to ask, when to ask them, and as a result, determine how best to support each function. The biggest cultural learning point for me was just how strong Dinsmore’s culture really is - The people here are incredibly hardworking, talented, and likable - and they do not take themselves too seriously. I also had to learn the decision making processes of a law firm, which are very different from those of a publicly traded technology company. Law firms are attorney-led, with committee structures and governance models that are genuinely unique and in the right culture, help teams have honest discussions about where we’re headed as an organization. Navigating that human terrain was a significant part of the initial journey, and it has worked out really well.
In 2025, we had a banner year with 14% revenue growth, which is fantastic and indicative of our early plans taking shape. But coming from the technology sector, I wanted our Business Development team to place greater emphasis on market segmentation analysis, market intelligence, and fostering cross-selling opportunities - identifying the areas where we can win and doubling down on what makes Dinsmore genuinely strong. We have excellent breadth of legal services spanning five departments across Commercial Litigation, Corporate, Public Finance, IP, and Employment groups, serving both national and regional clients across the U.S. To build on our successes to date, we sought a leader to help us mature our program,
building client personas and market segmentation, so that we can best equip our partners for growth opportunities and help them find new avenues to build their portfolios long-term. We hired Azeema Batchelor due to her 20+ years of legal expertise that will help us build the next evolution of marketing and business development. Using a data-driven analytical framework - we believe our programs will create fertile ground for partners to build and grow their portfolios, and through our growth story, attract other partners to join Dinsmore.
We recently launched a Client Success team - an idea very prevalent in the technology sector. You bracket clients by their respective size, segment, and industry, and build business development teams around these client centers to ensure their journey with the firm is a great experience. We measure success through client retention, growth, and satisfaction surveys. In addition, this team focuses on connecting the dots with our Dinsmore alumni, bringing together alumni, many of whom are now clients, so they can build their own networks and learn from their peers. We are setting up peer groups and hosting CLEs to foster greater stewardship of the profession. We have had elements of this across the firm for years, but we have now pulled it all into one team that orchestrates the entire picture end to end. We hope clients will see that and that it will be a real differentiator in how we serve the community.
For us, it comes back to data modernization. Organizations of our size and tenure carry significant technical debt - antiquated processes running in the background. We are investing in data modernization and warehousing, building a more sophisticated platform so we are ready to take advantage of emerging solutions as they mature. This year, we stood up a dedicated data office and established an Innovation Committee as a major organizational investment this year, focused on identifying client-centric use cases for AI and related automation. Treating data as an enterprise asset is central to our structure - over the next two to three years, a great deal more will come from that foundation.
It starts with training - equipping our attorneys and associates to use these tools in a way that is compliant and safe, but also genuinely adds value to the client. Our OGC, Compliance and Risk team keep an eye on emerging threats with respect to AI and collaborate with our training teams to ensure we’re using these tools effectively, and in a safe manner. The threats we encounter almost always span more than one of them.
One of the ongoing challenges is the cost of ownership for technology solutions - SaaS offerings continue to increase operating expenses year over year, and at the same time, you have to hire and retain strong talent, to create high performing teams. A question I am constantly asking is: when someone moves on, do we backfill one-for-one, or is there a solution that will allow us to achieve the same outcome in a more efficient manner? My overall view is that AI should create opportunities rather than fear. When I address the firm, I draw the comparison to how Microsoft Excel revolutionized the accounting industry – it eliminated manual work, created a new universal language within Finance, and ultimately created more demand for accountants as businesses scaled with new tools - I feel that AI solutions have even more potential to revolutionize the industry; changing the scale at which business professionals can support the practice of law.
A central part of our innovation group's charter this year is to bring business professionals into the pilot programs alongside attorneys – our goal this year is to create cross functional teams responsible for testing and piloting new solutions, knowing that the toolset a paralegal requires may be different from what a billing professional may need. The most important thing is to make the team part of the iterative testing and selection process, otherwise you risk adoption and long-term goals, with software collecting dust on the shelves. We believe that by involving both business professionals and attorneys in the piloting process, you can create super users who become advocates and trainers within their respective groups. The market is saturated with options right now, but as we see consolidation over time, our deliberate approach will set us up for success.
Stay connected - with your peers, with what is happening across the firm, and with the broader market. Part of my own path to becoming a COO was building broad, foundational knowledge across different functions before stepping into this role. If you want to grow as a professional, stay involved with projects beyond your immediate remit. Understand what your colleagues are working on, what their challenges are, and where you can contribute. When an opportunity arises, raise your hand,
support your teammates, and do not get complacent. Pick up an oar and help row. That cross-functional empathy and willingness to engage is what builds well-rounded professionals. Whether it helps us in the competitive marketplace is more of a byproduct - the real outcome is that we have incredibly talented people who are always learning and who genuinely care about the teams around them. That becomes its own force multiplier, and you see it in the quality of everything: project deployments, administrative support, the client service, etc.. All of the work that happens in the background becomes better, and that makes for a better experience for our attorneys and clients as a result.
A central part of our innovation group's charter this year is to bring business professionals into the pilot programs alongside attorneys – our goal this year is to create cross functional teams responsible for testing and piloting new solutions, knowing that the toolset a paralegal requires may be different from what a billing professional may need. The most important thing is to make the team part of the iterative testing and selection process, otherwise you risk adoption and long-term goals, with software collecting dust on the shelves. We believe that by involving both business professionals and attorneys in the piloting process, you can create super users who become advocates and trainers within their respective groups. The market is saturated with options right now, but as we see consolidation over time, our deliberate approach will set us up for success.
This interview was featured in our latest quarterly legal report. Discover the forces shaping the legal sector into 2026, from diversifying tech leadership, to a rise in new client-centric C suite titles, to why Directors are out-competing Chiefs for roles at the top.
