APRIL 30, 2025 – Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, a nationally recognized leader in legal services innovation, has been honored with the 2025 Transformative Project of the Year Award from the International Legal Technology Association.
DWT earned the award by creating and launching an AI-driven engine called Crescendo, which reverse-engineers official government and organizational forms into chat-based interviews that are both empathic and conversational. Based on the responses received in the chat, Crescendo then delivers a properly templated, finished form, that is fully populated and ready for review.
Crescendo sets a new standard for efficiency and accessibility in legal services, allowing anyone with a voice- and Internet-enabled device to complete standardized forms at any time, without reliance on a lawyer. The system is also designed with emotional intelligence, injecting the essence and nuances of in-person interviews to ensure clients feel heard and respected in sensitive situations, including contexts such as domestic violence or immigration.
"We expect Crescendo to transform multiple lines of business for DWT and our clients," said Dan Szabo, head of the internal R&D unit, De Novo, who led the swift development of Crescendo in response to a major client's request. The proprietary system was built on DWT's own language model, dwt.ai.
"With shortcomings in existing technology, increasingly complex client requirements, and the ever-present risk of AI hallucinations, we sought to invert the typical AI paradigm," said Szabo. "Rather than asking AI for answers, we deployed AI to ask the questions, gather data, and then process those unstructured responses into a useful and standardized form that is accurate and secure. This tool reimagines the client-attorney interview process, while preserving its fidelity and richness. We expect it to have countless applications."
DWT has been widely recognized as a leader in the AI space. Szabo was named a finalist for "Innovator of the Year" in American Lawyer Media's 2025 Leaders in Tech Law Awards and DWT was recognized in the most recent Financial Times Innovative Lawyers North America as the country's "Standout" firm for Innovation in Digitizing Legal Practice. Earlier this year, DWT announced an alliance with CodeX, the renowned center for legal informatics at Stanford University, to collaborate on advancing cutting-edge research, including prototyping advanced AI tools that deliver next-level excellence for clients.
The Transformative Project of the Year award was announced last night at ILTA's annual conference and Distinguished Peer Awards ceremony. Established in 2010, the Distinguished Peer Awards celebrate excellence in leveraging technology to drive innovation and success within the legal profession. This program honors individuals and teams whose achievements exemplify leadership, ingenuity, and the transformative power of technology.
About Davis Wright Tremaine
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP is an AmLaw 100 law firm with more than 600 lawyers representing clients based throughout the United States and around the world. Learn more at dwt.com.