Your AI governance keeps you compliant. It does not defend your firm’s pricing power.
Built for Am Law 100/200 leadership. To protect your Expertise Premium your law firm needs more than a policy.
Learn how to protect your Expertise Premium in the age of AI
The Gap
"If you are leveraging AI tools and you are experiencing efficiencies, we want to see those gains reflected in the way that you are billing us."
— Amy Monaghan, Senior Counsel Director, Ford Motor Company
Source: Thomson Reuters Legal Blog, "The future of legal collaboration: How AI is reshaping client-firm relationships," February 9, 2026 — legal.thomsonreuters.com
Who leads TugboatTugboat is led by Sheryl Kravitz Johnston, a brand strategist with 20+ years of experience guiding organizations through M&A integration, brand development, and growth strategy, including leading the rebrand of a three-company merger at Maxar Technologies and serving as fractional marketing leader for Arcwood Environmental. Her legal-sector activation work has been recognized by the Managing Partners Forum. She has advised the Meritas Legal Network, Vinson & Elkins, Clark Hill, and Ropes & Gray. The Expertise Premium Diagnostic draws on that same discipline: turning a strategic blind spot into a leadership-level decision, not just another compliance checklist.
Governance answers what can be used.
But it doesn't answer who's accountable for what leaves the firm. Not who used the tool. Or who stands behind the recommendation.
Accountability is what protects the premium. A firm can have airtight governance and still have this undefined because governance manages the tool. It doesn't protect the premium, the brand, or the firm once the tool is in the workflow.
Firms with a clear answer protect all three. Firms with only a compliance answer, compete on rate.
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What explicit accountability protects
A defensible line between AI-assisted work and partner accountability, in place before a client or carrier asks where it is.
Pricing Power
The Firm Brand
One position across practice groups, instead of every group answering the AI question differently.
Risk,in Real Time
Adoption that moves at the pace of strategy, so exposure is managed as the firm adopt, not after.
Where should you start
For Managing Partners & GCs
You're ready to see where your firm stands.
For CMOs and CMBDOs
Bring the framework back to your leadership team before the next step.
Let’s talk.
If this is a live question inside your firm, schedule a time to connect. I'll walk you through the diagnostic, or we can just get into where accountability sits inside your firm right now.