Everlaw Summit '25 Awards Honor HP, BakerHostetler and Legal Aid Society

Winners and how they were chosen

The awards were presented across two days on the main stage of Everlaw Summit '25, which Everlaw says offered three days of panels, product workshops and networking. Winners were chosen from many nominations by a panel of judges: Jeff Comeau of Align Technology, Gloria Lee and Sheneika Hurley of Everlaw, Stephanie Wilkins of LegalTechnology Hub, and Jessica Wan of Ferguson Case Orr Paterson.

The Summit program included a keynote by Jad Abumrad on how to have better conversations, along with breakout sessions on generative AI, litigation and the future of ediscovery.

Generative AI and corporate use cases

HP won Corporate Breakthrough of the Year, accepted by Associate General Counsel Thane Vallette. According to Everlaw, HP has standardized on its platform for core ediscovery work and is piloting it to tackle data overload, estimating it could eliminate 25-30% of stored, redundant, or obsolete data. Everlaw also says HP used Everlaw AI Assistant to cut a 500-hour orphaned data extraction project to approximately 12 hours, and that Vallette has led HP's involvement in the Everlaw AI Deep Dive beta program, used to mine millions of documents in its archive.

James Bekier, Director of Litigation Services at Am Law 200 firm BakerHostetler, received Leadership in Generative AI. Everlaw cites his use of generative AI to translate and summarize foreign-language video evidence, identify defamatory content for complaints, and integrate Storybuilder to streamline litigation narrative building.

Mared Jones, Operations and Project Manager at XBundle, won Rising Star in Ediscovery. Everlaw says she devised a bespoke workflow to deploy Everlaw AI Assistant that the Everlaw team had not conceived itself, and that initial comparisons showed more useful and accurate outcomes than a competing AI model on the same data. Her work for Macfarlanes includes the 4.5 million documents in Project Lignite and support on Goyal v. BGF Investment Management.

Support teams and mentorship

Eric Beard, Director of Litigation Support at Barnes & Thornburg, won Impact Agent of the Year. Over the last 4 years, according to Everlaw, he reshaped the firm's Ediscovery Services into a recognized, revenue-generating business unit. He leads a five-person team and has won buy-in from attorneys, including senior partners, to review documents directly in Everlaw.

Randy Abraham, a Deloitte contractor at the Department of Justice/EOUSA, took Excellence in Legal Mentorship. Everlaw says he turned his customer's Everlaw helpdesk into a mentorship hub serving thousands of federal legal professionals. He delivers at least one custom training session almost every day and is behind a 10-part Everlaw webinar series that draws hundreds of attendees per session.

Everlaw for Good and what it shows

The Legal Aid Society, described as the oldest and largest public interest law firm in New York City, won the Everlaw for Good Award. Founded in 1876, it has supported low-income New Yorkers in more than 300,000 legal matters. In a multi-plaintiff housing discrimination lawsuit with the Housing Rights Initiative, it used Everlaw's platform to secure settlements with nearly 50 defendants. Everlaw says the outcome increases access to affordable housing for almost 100,000 New York City households, with settlements requiring steps such as reserving units for voucher holders.

The source text is cut off during the People's Choice Award, which is selected on-site by Summit attendees, so that winner is not covered here.

The winners point to where Everlaw says its users are focusing: generative AI tools for document-heavy work, in-house adoption by corporate legal teams, and training programs that spread use of the platform inside large organizations.