Building a Tech-Forward Patent Practice: Phil Harris on Automation and AI / IP Innovators

In the latest episode of IP Innovators, host Steve Brachmann discusses the evolution of patent practice, in-house innovation, and the growing role of AI with Phil Harris, Equity Partner and Patent Practice Group Leader at Holland & Hart.

As firms navigate when to build their own tools versus partnering with vendors, Harris offers a grounded look at how automation is reshaping the daily realities of patent work, and why the most forward-thinking teams treat innovation not as a one-time project, but as a continuous practice.

Automation as a Force Multiplier

For Phil Harris, automation isn’t about replacing human expertise—it’s about multiplying its impact. The tools his team has developed don’t remove people from the process; they remove the friction.

“There are a couple of areas that are more automated type tools that do tasks that a person can do by themselves, but will just take more time and more energy or just increase the cost,” Harris explained. “One of those is having bots that will save different emails into our document management system rather than a person going and grabbing that email and saving it over and labeling it in a certain way.”

These automations handle tasks that are essential but repetitive, allowing practitioners to redirect their attention to higher-value analysis and strategy.

“Having it done automatically allows our team to really free up their time to focus on, ‘Was that done correctly?’, double check it, and then move on to the next thing,” Harris said.

By integrating automation into everyday workflows, Holland & Hart has built a more efficient, quality-driven practice—one where lawyers spend less time on mechanical work and more time on meaningful judgment calls.

The Roots of In-House Innovation

The firm’s innovation journey began long before AI entered the conversation. More than a decade ago, Harris and his colleagues started looking for ways to streamline recurring tasks in patent preparation and prosecution.

“A bunch of different practitioners thought to ourselves, ‘How can we do this better?’” Harris recalled. “We’re steeped in technology…how can we leverage some of that technology to help us?”

What started as a handful of small efficiency experiments grew into a deliberate culture of internal development. Over time, the team created tools for automating emails, generating templates, tracking disclosures, and standardizing communications—all designed by practitioners who understood the workflow challenges firsthand.

That approach, Harris said, has changed not only how they work, but how they think: innovation isn’t a project; it’s a habit.

Knowing When to Build and When to Buy

Still, Harris is careful to draw a line between what should be built internally and what is best sourced externally.

“It’s a little bit case by case,” he explained. Some of the factors his team weighs are:

• What’s the return?
• What’s the cost?
• What’s already available?

In other words, not every problem needs a bespoke solution. For many firms, the challenge lies in knowing where internal innovation creates unique value, and where leveraging external tools can provide faster, proven results.

Harris’s approach reflects a pragmatic middle ground: invest in building tools that define your firm’s practice, and partner where trusted technologies can scale or support that foundation. That balance allows the team to maintain control over sensitive workflows while tapping into the broader ecosystem of legal technology that’s pushing the profession forward.

The Human Element in AI

Perhaps Harris’s most important insight concerns the human role in AI-driven workflows. While enthusiasm for generative AI continues to grow across the legal industry, he made clear that its value depends on experienced practitioners who know how to guide and refine it.

“Smaller, more bite-sized things often lead to a little bit of help,” he said, “but that still requires the architect—the practitioner architect—to help put all those building blocks together in a way that works well.”

Even when AI tools can speed up technical reviews or summarize complex materials, Harris emphasized that judgment, strategy, and accountability remain uniquely human responsibilities. For him, true efficiency comes not from replacing people with technology, but from pairing skilled practitioners with the right systems to amplify their impact.

Keeping Pace with a Fast-Moving Industry

For Harris, innovation isn’t a one-time project, but an ongoing process of learning and iteration. The pace of technological change in the industries his clients serve means patent professionals must evolve just as quickly.

“If you just rely on the knowledge base that you have and say, ‘I know everything out there,’ you’re not going to capture the nuances or scope that somebody on the leading edge would ask,” he said.

Harris’s view aligns with a growing consensus among IP professionals: the best practitioners are those who treat their technical and legal learning as continuous, not sequential.

A Culture of Continuous Improvement

At Holland & Hart, innovation isn’t confined to a small technical team, it’s embedded in the firm’s culture. Attorneys, agents, and staff are encouraged to suggest new ideas, test tools, and challenge existing workflows.

This culture of experimentation has helped the group develop proprietary systems that mirror their clients’ own engineering-driven processes — making the firm’s approach not only more efficient but also more intuitive to the inventors they represent.

By aligning internal innovation with client expectations, Harris’s team has built more than software; they’ve built trust.

The Future of Tech-Forward IP Practice

As automation and AI continue to reshape the IP landscape, Harris sees a clear path forward: a hybrid model where law firms innovate internally while adopting reliable, secure third-party technologies to complement that innovation.

The result is a practice that’s both flexible and resilient — one that values human insight as much as computational power.

For Harris, the guiding principle remains simple but powerful:

“How can we do this better?”

It’s a question every patent professional could stand to ask — not just about their cases, but about their craft.

IP Innovators is proudly sponsored by DeepIP—the patent intelligence platform for in-house teams and external counsel. Learn more at deepip.ai.