Microsoft 365 Solution for Legal Teams: Why Adoption Is Growing

Last Updated on February 6, 2026 Sarah Gayda

Law firms and legal departments are increasingly standardizing on cloud platforms to support collaboration, security, and compliance. Among these platforms, Microsoft 365 has emerged as a leading solution for legal teams, replacing or augmenting legacy systems that were not designed for modern, distributed ways of working.

What’s driving this shift is not just familiarity or cost savings, but the ability to support legal-specific requirements — such as secure collaboration, document and email governance, and regulatory compliance — within a single, integrated ecosystem.

What does a “Microsoft 365 solution for legal” mean?

A Microsoft 365 solution for legal refers to using Microsoft 365 applications — such as SharePoint Online, Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, and Microsoft’s compliance tools — as a unified platform to support legal workflows.

In practice, this means legal teams use Microsoft 365 to:

• Collaborate on matters securely

• Manage documents and email related to client work

• Apply governance, retention, and access controls

• Support discovery and audit requirements

• Enable hybrid and remote legal work

Rather than relying on siloed tools, Microsoft 365 provides a flexible foundation that legal teams can configure and extend to meet their operational and regulatory needs.

Why law firms and legal departments are choosing Microsoft 365

Legal organizations face increasing pressure to work faster, collaborate more effectively, and reduce risk — all while protecting highly sensitive client information. Microsoft 365 addresses these needs through a combination of productivity, security, and compliance capabilities.

Key drivers of adoption include:

• Integrated collaboration through Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint

• Centralized information storage for documents and matter-related content

• Built-in security controls such as encryption and access management

• Compliance capabilities that support retention, auditability, and eDiscovery

• Support for hybrid work, allowing legal teams to work securely from anywhere

As adoption grows, many organizations are also rethinking their approach to legal document management, using Microsoft 365 to manage matter-related documents and email in a more structured, governed way.

Original insights from legal professionals

To better understand how legal organizations are adopting Microsoft 365, Colligo conducted a poll of legal professionals across law firms and legal departments.

The results highlight a clear trend: Microsoft 365 is becoming the primary collaboration and information platform for legal work. At the same time, the data reveals ongoing challenges around managing email, attachments, and matter-related information consistently.

These insights suggest that while adoption is accelerating, many legal teams are still putting governance and workflow patterns in place.

What makes Microsoft 365 effective for legal teams

Microsoft 365 supports legal work through a combination of core capabilities that address both productivity and risk management.

Collaboration and productivity

Tools like Outlook, Teams, and OneDrive allow lawyers to communicate and collaborate in real time, while keeping conversations and documents connected to the right context.

Document and information governance

SharePoint Online enables structured storage of legal documents, with metadata, version control, and permissions that support matter-based organization.

Microsoft’s compliance tools — such as retention labels and audit logs — help legal teams manage information lifecycle requirements more defensibly.

Security and compliance

Microsoft 365 includes enterprise-grade security features that help protect client confidentiality, control access to sensitive data, and support regulatory obligations.

AI readiness

As AI capabilities become more common in legal technology, having well-governed, well-structured information in Microsoft 365 is increasingly important. Clean, classified data is foundational to responsible AI use. For more on this, see AI Ready Data Will Ensure Your Business Success.

Where Microsoft 365 needs extension for legal use cases

While Microsoft 365 provides a strong platform, it is not a complete, out-of-the-box legal document management solution. Legal teams often need additional capabilities to ensure governance is applied consistently within everyday workflows.

Common gaps include:

• Filing email and attachments into the correct matter location

• Enforcing metadata and classification at the point of capture

• Ensuring email is treated as a governed legal record, not just communication

This is where purpose-built tools like Colligo Email Manager can extend Microsoft 365 to better support legal requirements.

Bringing governance into everyday legal workflows

Many legal organizations extend Microsoft 365 with tools that integrate governance directly into applications lawyers already use, such as Outlook.

For example, enabling lawyers to file email and attachments directly into SharePoint matter workspaces — with consistent metadata and retention applied — helps reduce risk without slowing work down. Real-world results show how these workflow extensions deliver operational impact:

• Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC): Legal professionals saved over 20 hours per lawyer per month by using Colligo Email Manager with SharePoint Online to file email and documents reliably into matter workspaces.

• L. Fournier & Fils legal department: Team members saved up to 80 hours per person per year by applying governance workflows to Microsoft 365 email and document capture.

These examples show how extending Microsoft 365 with governance workflows can produce measurable time savings and better information control.

For a practical walkthrough of how legal teams are using Microsoft 365 to manage documents and email by matter, see our webinar 5 Reasons to Use M365 as your Legal Document Management System.

Best practices for implementing Microsoft 365 in legal environments

Legal teams that are most successful with Microsoft 365 tend to follow a few consistent practices:

• Define governance policies before rolling out tools

• Structure SharePoint around matters and legal work, not departments

• Make compliant behavior easy for lawyers through workflow integration

• Train users on both “how” and “why” governance matters

• Review and adapt configurations as regulations and work patterns evolve

These practices are central to effective information governance for law firms, helping legal teams apply consistent controls without disrupting daily work.

Using Microsoft 365 as a long-term legal platform

Microsoft 365 is no longer just a productivity suite — it has become a strategic platform for legal teams. When configured thoughtfully and supported by the right governance practices, it can reduce reliance on legacy systems, improve collaboration, and strengthen compliance.

Success comes from combining Microsoft 365’s capabilities with legal-specific workflows, governance, and change management.

Frequently asked questions about Microsoft 365 solutions for legal