How Wordsmith AI Turned In-House Legal Into A Revenue Engine
Ross McNairn on quitting his CTO role for legal AI, why building for in-house teams is different, and his vision for the future of the in-house lawyer
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I spoke with Ross McNairn, co-founder and CEO of Wordsmith AI, who trained as a lawyer, retrained as a software engineer, and spent over a decade scaling companies like Skyscanner and TravelPerk.
When he got early access to OpenAI’s AI tool, he quit his CTO role to get building in legal AI.
Wordsmith is built exclusively for in-house teams - connecting legal to the business through AI-powered workflows.
We discussed:
→ How the relentless focus on going after "in-house" led them to build the product they have today.
→ The difference between building AI for law firms versus in-house teams.
→ Why Wordsmith aren't worried about OpenAI or Anthropic "going vertical".
→ What Ross looks for when hiring new employees at Wordsmith.
→ His vision for what the future of an in-house lawyer role will look like.
