MSPs face a unique combination of technology, cybersecurity and business risk—and their contracts need to keep pace. In this week’s MSPInfluencer Primecast, Joey Pinz talks with Robert Scott of Monjur about MSP legal exposure, the risks of relying on general-purpose AI for legal work and how a more standardized approach can help MSPs protect their businesses.
1. MSPs Can Be Blamed for Problems They Didn’t Cause
Scott points out that MSPs operate in a particularly complex risk environment. When a client’s technology goes down, the financial impact can quickly become significant. Even more concerning, MSPs can face claims stemming from third-party criminal activity such as ransomware attacks and business email compromise.
That makes contractual protections around liability, indemnification, insurance and vendor risk especially important.
2. Better Contracts Are Only the Beginning
Scott describes MSP legal maturity in four stages: unprotected, protected, standardized and intelligent. Getting the right agreements in place moves an MSP toward protection, but standardizing how those agreements are used across customers takes the business further.
A consistent contracting process can also reduce friction during sales. Instead of handling every agreement differently, MSPs can create a more repeatable approach as they grow.
3. AI Shouldn’t Replace Legal Expertise
Scott is clear about the risks of relying on general-purpose AI tools for legal agreements. Large language models can hallucinate, lose context, summarize incorrectly or simply provide an answer that sounds convincing but is wrong.
The bigger problem is knowing when that happens. Without the necessary legal expertise, an MSP may not be able to determine whether an AI-generated contract or recommendation is actually sound.
Scott calls his preferred approach “lawyer in the loop”—using AI while maintaining qualified human oversight.
4. AI Can Make Expertise More Accessible
Scott is also optimistic about AI when it is grounded in the right knowledge and paired with appropriate safeguards. He discusses using AI with established contracts and legal knowledge bases to help make legal workflows faster and more efficient.
His broader point is that AI does not eliminate the importance of subject-matter expertise. Instead, it can help knowledgeable professionals deliver that expertise more efficiently while keeping human judgment involved where it matters.
What This Means for MSPs
For MSPs, the opportunity is to take a more mature approach to contracts, risk and AI. That means understanding where the business is exposed, creating greater consistency in customer agreements and using AI to improve efficiency without removing the expertise and human oversight that important decisions require.