Empire State Entrepreneurs: S3, E3 featuring Ben Burge & Matt Miller of Rupp Pfalzgraf LLC

In this episode of the Empire State Entrepreneurs and New York Business Law Podcast, host David Pfalzgraf is joined by Matt Miller, Practice Area Leader of Labor & Employment, and Ben Burge, M&A attorney and General Counsel at Rupp Pfalzgraf. They pull back the curtain on the firm's AI adoption journey, from early experimentation to building an internal task force, weekly training sessions, and hiring in-house data engineers to build proprietary tools. Recorded live at Incept's podcast studio, The Vault, in Buffalo, NY. *The Moment It Clicked* Ben's entry into AI was accidental, a morning walk with ChatGPT that produced a 25-page memo on a complex legal question he hadn't finished asking. Work that would have taken days arrived in 20 minutes. Matt's awakening came from a five-minute check-in with managing partner Tony Rupp that turned into an hour-long conversation on why this wasn't a passing trend. *Survey First, Strategy Second* The firm started by asking employees what AI tools they were already using. The results surprised leadership and gave them a real baseline to build from, which platforms, how often, and for what. Enterprise accounts with proper confidentiality and security provisions followed. *Task Force & Friday Breakfasts* A cross-functional AI Task Force identified where high-value employees were spending time on low-value, automatable work. Weekly Friday breakfast sessions let attorneys and staff share use cases and workshop prompting techniques. Ben led a full internal session on prompt quality, because how you ask matters as much as what you ask. *Hiring Data Engineers* Rather than buying off-the-shelf tools, the firm hired in-house data engineers to build proprietary solutions. Current builds include automated subpoena generation and document request tools. The engineers attend every Task Force meeting and take direct requests from lawyers and firm leadership. *Accountability Doesn't Come with the Output* AI gives you an answer, not accountability. Matt reviews AI-assisted work from junior attorneys by asking: Why is this argument here? Did you actually read what it generated? The goal is building judgment, not just efficiency. *Five Years Out* Neither guest expects AI to replace lawyers soon, but firms not actively building a strategy are already behind. The pace of change is the difference: what took decades in previous technology cycles is happening in months. --- *Key Takeaways* Survey your team first. Find out what they're already using. Security before scale. Data governance is a prerequisite, not an add-on. Find where your best people are doing your worst work, that's where AI delivers fastest. Prompt quality is everything. Garbage in, garbage out. AI gives you an answer; you supply the judgment. Don't wait for clean ROI. The gains are real even when hard to quantify. Hire for judgment and adaptability, not output volume. Evolve or get left behind. Law, accounting, finance, consulting, healthcare, every industry is facing this reckoning.