Tag: AI policy

Team using holographic displays for software development planning

What to Decide Before Your Firm Touches an AI Tool

Your firm is already running on AI. Most managing partners have no idea how much.

That is the argument Kathy Serenko, Amy Adams, and I made during our June 3rd webinar on “Three AI Conversations Every Law Firm Needs to Have”, hosted by the Law Firm Profitability Group on LinkedIn. Not which tools to use, but what your firm needs to have decided before it touches any of them. The recording is here.

Kathy Serenko is the founder of AI Efficiency Labs, and Amy Adams is the founder of Gaia Allies and AIReady™.

Kathy led with the governance perspective. Her opening question: Are you already exposed? Her answer, based on what she sees in firms daily: almost certainly yes.

AI enters your firm in ways leadership cannot see. A paralegal uploads 300 pages of medical records to a personal ChatGPT account under a deadline. The summary looks clean. Three months later, the error surfaces in a settlement discussion. A vendor tool your firm approved last year has AI inside it you never examined. The tools you signed off on produce errors that reach binding deliverables before anyone reviews them. AI is designed to produce plausible output, and it will not tell you when it is filling in blanks.

Kathy’s second point: having an AI policy is not the same as having governance. Less than 40% of law firms have a policy at all, and a policy is only a statement of intent. The missing layer is the day-to-day controls built into your actual workflow. Without those controls, the policy and the reality of what is happening in your firm will not align.

Governance means a domain expert, not IT, is the authority over AI output in each practice area. Someone who reads a research memo and recognizes when the content is wrong. The errors appearing in court sanctions are content errors, and the people catching them are judges and opposing counsel. They are domain experts. Your oversight authority in each practice area needs to be one too.

Amy made the workflow case. Her rule before recommending any AI system: map the workflow first. She recently spent 90 minutes with a family law partner doing exactly that. In your firm, that work probably has not been done. If the process exists only in someone’s head, the AI system inherits every gap in it. The tool scales what is already there.

Before the workflow is designed, the economics need to be settled. If a matter that used to take 10 hours now takes five, and your firm is still billing hourly, you may be cutting your revenue in half for that work. Pricing needs to be decided before the workflow is built. Firms that build the workflow first and sort out the pricing later often discover they cannot make money at it.

Everyone in your firm is asking the same question in different ways: what happens to me? The concern is real at every level, and dismissing it does not make it go away. What is actually changing is what each role does. Paralegals are running AI systems that used to require associate hours. Associates who used to produce first drafts are now verifying AI output and building judgment through that review. Partners who used to do the work are moving toward designing the systems that do it. The firms handling this well are having that conversation before the tools arrive.

Leadership does not get to delegate this responsibility. You cannot hand AI governance to a technology committee and check back in six months. You have to understand where the exposure is and whether your compensation structure supports what you are asking of your partners.

Your partners who put their expertise into an AI system will watch their billable hours fall as the system takes on that work. That contribution needs to be reflected in how they are compensated. If your firm still pays only for billable hours, you will not get the cooperation needed to build something that works.

The firms moving ahead well on this have answered the harder questions before reaching for tools.

round metal frame with disco light

What the Law Firm of the Future Looks Like: Strategy, Structure, and Supercharged Lawyers

I was pleased to be interviewed recently by Michelle Crawford, Founder of Being More Human, for their webinar, “The Law Firm of the Future,” which was presented in Newcastle, Australia, on June 24, 2025.

Here’s a summary of my interview with Michelle. I shared my views on the future of law firms, AI and the leadership qualities that will define success over the next decade.

Breaking Free from the Pyramid

When Michelle asked me what the law firm of the future means to me, I told her we need to move beyond the traditional pyramid structure we’ve relied on for decades. That model, where equity partners sit at the top, supported by layers of associates and staff, has worked for a long time. But it’s not built for what’s coming next.

With AI and other technologies transforming how legal work gets done, I see firms shifting toward a flatter, platform-based structure. This will be a more client-centered, collaborative structure, with success measured by outcomes and value created, not just time. We won’t need as many associates performing repetitive tasks, and we’ll start integrating professionals from outside traditional legal roles, such as legal engineers and data analysts.

Equity partners will still play a vital role, but the real value will come from how well we can deliver outcomes through innovative systems and multidisciplinary collaboration. Power dynamics within firms will shift, too. Influence won’t just come from seniority or book of business; it will come from how well you can contribute to a team that’s built for speed and client value.

The Most Critical Changes Firms Must Make

When I look at how law firms currently operate, I see two changes that can’t wait any longer.

First, we need to move away from time-based billing. As we adopt AI and become more efficient, relying solely on billable hours starts to work against us. If we’re doing things faster but still charging by the hour, we’re shrinking our revenue. That’s why I encourage firms to take value-based pricing seriously; pricing based on the outcome or the value to the client, rather than the time spent.

The second adjustment is building real support for AI implementation. This isn’t something lawyers can do alone. We need legal engineers and operational professionals who understand how to integrate technology in a way that delivers genuine value. Efficiency on its own isn’t enough; we must connect it to pricing and the client experience.

Starting the AI Journey Right

I always tell firms to start with their workflows, not with tools. Before investing in AI or diving into platforms like ChatGPT, map out your processes. Where are the inefficiencies? Where are you duplicating effort or overcomplicating tasks?

Sometimes the answer isn’t to automate, it’s to eliminate or redesign. If a workflow is broken, automating it makes you faster at doing the wrong thing. Once you’ve rethought your processes, you can explore tools that help you do things more efficiently and effectively.

It’s also critical to set policies around AI use. These technologies are advancing rapidly, and you must manage issues like hallucinations and data security. A recent Thomson Reuters survey showed that regular AI usage among lawyers doubled in a year, from 20% to 40%. This is moving fast. If you haven’t started, the best time is now.

Culture and Talent: The Human Side of Transformation

Culturally, firms need to rethink their leadership style in this new platform structure. You’re bringing in a broader mix of multidisciplinary professionals, and need leaders who know how to work collaboratively and lead diverse teams.

That means making space for empathy and inclusive leadership. Emotional intelligence is going to become more critical than ever. AI can handle a significant amount of legal grunt work, but it cannot replace the client relationship and business development functions. That’s where people will shine.

Job descriptions will also change dramatically. Team members won’t just be “partners,” “lawyers,” or “staff.” They’ll be contributors in a flexible, tech-enabled system. And firms that adapt their culture to that reality will attract the best talent.

My Bold Prediction for 2035

By 2035, we may no longer refer to them as law firms. We’ll be seeing global platforms that bring together lawyers and multidisciplinary professionals under one roof. Midsized firms will get squeezed as their clients accelerate the adoption of AI for in-house legal work. Smaller firms that supercharge their lawyers using AI will be a force to be reckoned with.

And I hope we retire the term “non-lawyer.” Everyone who contributes to client outcomes, whether they’re a lawyer or not, deserves equal recognition and opportunity. We shouldn’t define people by what they aren’t.

We’ll also see changes in ownership models. In some parts of the world, such as the UK, non-lawyer ownership and multidisciplinary practices are already well-established. That change is happening slower in North America, but it’s coming, and AI is accelerating it.

I believe firms will become increasingly integrated, with fewer silos and a greater focus on collaboration across disciplines. That’s how we’ll deliver high-value services and meet our clients’ evolving needs.

The future belongs to firms that can adapt quickly and focus on delivering value to clients. The transformation is already underway; the question is whether your firm will lead it or be left behind.