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Is AI right for a law firm?
It’s one of the many critical decisions that Lana Crump has tackled in her role as a partner and general counsel for Kean Miller.
She stepped into the position four years ago at the urging of firm leadership. Today, she advises Kean Miller on a variety of legal issues, including by reviewing firm contracts and providing insights into ethical and conflict issues involving client matters.
Crump also is a voice for best practices when it comes to implementing new tools in the legal space—with AI being high on the list.
Early on, the firm organized a task force of interested attorneys that focused on how AI could help both with clients and the business as a whole. Crump helped craft a policy specifying ways that AI can and cannot be used when it comes to such issues as client confidentiality, copyrights and intellectual property.
“We decided that we are not ready to adopt an open AI or generative AI platform here, but we can leverage what is in the market for legal services,” she says. This includes using platforms for legal research such as Westlaw Precision.
As a young woman growing up in Alexandria, Crump originally contemplated a career in broadcast journalism. But family members who practiced law had a hand in also inspiring an early interest in law.
Nevertheless, she went on to LSU to study journalism, earning a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism in 1992. But she never could quite shake her curiosity for the courtroom.
“It seemed very intellectually challenging,” she says. “Ultimately, I think I called it right.”
In addition to representing companies and individuals in business disputes, contract litigation and insurance claims, Crump brought a unique expertise in class-action litigation involving chemical exposures and catastrophic accidents. She counts some of Louisiana’s biggest energy and petrochemical companies among her clients.
On another front, she counseled municipalities on municipal, land use, constitutional and civil rights issues.
These days, however, the firm is her primary focus. “This has evolved into a significant role now to where my outside practice is secondary to the general counsel,” she says.
She also has served as a mentor during her time at Kean Miller, helping many young attorneys navigate challenges while in the early stages of their career. Mentoring can be a two-way street, however, and Crump says she learns just as much from the mentees.
Crump stays active in the community by volunteering her time with organizations such as Capital Area United Way. This year, she and her husband, Hampton, will celebrate the graduation of two of their children from Samford University in Birmingham.
As Crump gets ready to celebrate a career milestone—next year will mark 30 years with Kean Miller—she is quick to praise the firm’s culture of camaraderie, which she says was instilled by its founding partners and continues to this day.
“We also have such a great client base and continue to grow it,” Crump says. “It’s fun when you have good steady work coming in. We’ve had great success and growth as a firm and it has made it a great place to be.”
THE INFLUENCE
Lana Crump guides Fortune 50 clients and local businesses in toxic tort and mass tort actions, business litigation, financial services litigation, federal civil rights cases, local government and land use matters, as well as property, life, health, and disability insurance litigation. The LSU Law Center Hall of Famer also advises fellow Kean Miller attorneys on legal and ethical issues.
