Everyone expects AI to make legal work faster. Clients expect it most of all, and some now expect lower bills to follow. Joe Patrice of Above the Law observes that clients want faster and cheaper results regardless of what AI realistically delivers. We need to manage those expectations now, before they harden into budgets.
In my experience, AI does not always get the work done faster. It gets the work done differently. The early evidence points the same way. In “Alex Su Named President Of Latitude As Flex Legal Staffing Market Booms,” Patrice notes that so far AI seems to be increasing the time lawyers work. Part of that may be lawyers frantically editing to avoid the next AI hallucination headline. Part may be that AI uncovers new counterarguments and research rabbit holes that someone has to chase down. Either way, the time does not disappear. It moves.
Su describes where it moves in Latitude’s announcement of his promotion. “As routine work gets automated, the work that’s left for legal teams to handle is more complex, higher stakes, and less predictable, and clients need to be able to bring in support quickly when it hits.” Patrice adds that a competent first draft may no longer be scarce, while the skill to edit it into something presentable will be. Latitude’s growth suggests legal teams are covering bursts of complex work with flexible talent because no one is sure what staffing should look like in an AI world.
Pricing is unsettled too. In a recent Everlaw interview, “What Comes After the Billable Hour? Ken Callander Says Firms Should Charge for Value, Not Time,” Petra Pasternak spoke with Ken Callander of Value Strategies. Callander argued that AI is pushing legal work toward value-based pricing. He helped move much of Uber’s legal work off hourly billing. As Today’s general counsel summarized, he expects contracts, immigration, employment, and real estate work to shift toward AI and other alternatives to traditional firms. In his view, highly specialized matters will keep time-based pricing.
I am less certain the billable hour is going away. It has survived many predicted deaths. Whatever the pricing model, a harder question sits beneath it. If AI changes what legal work looks like, it changes who does the work and how they learn to do it. As a GC who has also taught law students, I think that question deserves more attention than it gets.
The Speed Misconception
AI can help produce drafts in seconds. It is after that when the real work begins. Someone has to check the citations and confirm the cases say what the draft claims. Someone has to test the reasoning against the facts and spot what the tool missed or invented. The validation is where the lawyer earns the fee. The quality of the final product improves, and so does the time it takes to get there right.
Whether a firm bills by the hour or by the deliverable, the value lies in the judgment applied to the draft. A draft generated in seconds is worth little until a lawyer has tested it. Firms that want to keep client trust need to do two things. First, quantify the value they deliver in terms clients recognize, such as exposure reduced, deals closed, and risk avoided. Second, show clients how they validate AI-assisted work. I want to know how a firm guards against complacency, protects privilege, and guards against over-reliance on the tool. A firm that can’t answer that question is selling me speed, and speed alone is, quite frankly, dangerous.
The Replacement Misconception
AI won’t replace lawyers. It will change how we do the work and how we train new lawyers. The second change matters more.
Patrice notes that the entry-level work junior lawyers historically performed is getting pushed to the bots, and Biglaw associate classes are getting smaller. That should worry anyone who cares about where the next generation of lawyers comes from.
I remember being a paralegal and then a junior associate. I scoured documents and case law and prepared memos and chronologies. I remember how heavily that responsibility weighed on me. I had the technical skills. I did not yet have the legal judgment. I was afraid a partner would rely on my work and I would get something wrong.
Through repetition, under supervision, I learned what mattered and what didn’t. I learned what a partner would ask before the partner asked it.
If junior lawyers no longer build judgment by grinding through document review and research memos, where will they build it?
Recalibrating The Senior-Junior Relationship
I believe new lawyers will learn by digging into how AI does the work and validating it. The junior lawyer’s job shifts from producing the first draft to questioning it. Why did the tool reach this conclusion? What authority supports it? What did it leave out? Would this hold up in front of a judge, a regulator, or opposing counsel? That is a harder skill to teach than drafting a memo from scratch. It also requires senior lawyers to change. Partners and GCs can no longer simply review the junior lawyer’s output. They need to review the junior lawyer’s validation process. They need to explain why they trust one answer and push back on another.
The senior-junior relationship was always an apprenticeship. In the AI era, it has to become an apprenticeship in judgment.
A Word To Professors
Law schools need to rethink this too. Professors should allow students to use AI, provided the professor will actually examine the work and require the student to validate it.
If we allow AI without demanding validation, we teach students bad habits. They learn to trust output they don’t understand. Those habits are hard to break, even for students who manage to pass the bar. Their future employers and clients will pay for that.
Banning AI isn’t the answer either. Our students will use these tools on their first day of practice. Our job is to make sure they use them as lawyers.
We Have Been Here Before
I am old enough to remember the birth of the internet and the move from books to online research. People worried then that lawyers would lose the ability to research. Instead, the profession adapted. The best lawyers learned to use the new tools without giving up the judgment the tools couldn’t supply.
AI is a tool like any other tool. It is more capable than anything we have had before, so the stakes are higher. Lawyers who treat it as a shortcut will get caught. Lawyers who treat it as a starting point and validate the work will deliver better results than ever.
The work may not get faster. It will get better, and clients will pay for that.
Lisa Lang is an accomplished in-house lawyer and thought leader dedicated to empowering fellow legal professionals. She offers insights and resources tailored for in-house counsel through her website and blog, Why This, Not That™ (www.lawyerlisalang.com). Lisa actively engages with the legal community via LinkedIn, sharing her expertise and fostering meaningful connections. You can reach her at lisa@lawyerlisalang.com, connect on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawyerlisalang/).
The post AI Won’t Make Lawyering Faster. It Will Make It Different. appeared first on Above the Law.
Everyone expects AI to make legal work faster. Clients expect it most of all, and some now expect lower bills to follow. Joe Patrice of Above the Law observes that clients want faster and cheaper results regardless of what AI realistically delivers. We need to manage those expectations now, before they harden into budgets.
In my experience, AI does not always get the work done faster. It gets the work done differently. The early evidence points the same way. In “Alex Su Named President Of Latitude As Flex Legal Staffing Market Booms,” Patrice notes that so far AI seems to be increasing the time lawyers work. Part of that may be lawyers frantically editing to avoid the next AI hallucination headline. Part may be that AI uncovers new counterarguments and research rabbit holes that someone has to chase down. Either way, the time does not disappear. It moves.
Su describes where it moves in Latitude’s announcement of his promotion. “As routine work gets automated, the work that’s left for legal teams to handle is more complex, higher stakes, and less predictable, and clients need to be able to bring in support quickly when it hits.” Patrice adds that a competent first draft may no longer be scarce, while the skill to edit it into something presentable will be. Latitude’s growth suggests legal teams are covering bursts of complex work with flexible talent because no one is sure what staffing should look like in an AI world.
Pricing is unsettled too. In a recent Everlaw interview, “What Comes After the Billable Hour? Ken Callander Says Firms Should Charge for Value, Not Time,” Petra Pasternak spoke with Ken Callander of Value Strategies. Callander argued that AI is pushing legal work toward value-based pricing. He helped move much of Uber’s legal work off hourly billing. As Today’s general counsel summarized, he expects contracts, immigration, employment, and real estate work to shift toward AI and other alternatives to traditional firms. In his view, highly specialized matters will keep time-based pricing.
I am less certain the billable hour is going away. It has survived many predicted deaths. Whatever the pricing model, a harder question sits beneath it. If AI changes what legal work looks like, it changes who does the work and how they learn to do it. As a GC who has also taught law students, I think that question deserves more attention than it gets.
The Speed Misconception
AI can help produce drafts in seconds. It is after that when the real work begins. Someone has to check the citations and confirm the cases say what the draft claims. Someone has to test the reasoning against the facts and spot what the tool missed or invented. The validation is where the lawyer earns the fee. The quality of the final product improves, and so does the time it takes to get there right.
Whether a firm bills by the hour or by the deliverable, the value lies in the judgment applied to the draft. A draft generated in seconds is worth little until a lawyer has tested it. Firms that want to keep client trust need to do two things. First, quantify the value they deliver in terms clients recognize, such as exposure reduced, deals closed, and risk avoided. Second, show clients how they validate AI-assisted work. I want to know how a firm guards against complacency, protects privilege, and guards against over-reliance on the tool. A firm that can’t answer that question is selling me speed, and speed alone is, quite frankly, dangerous.
The Replacement Misconception
AI won’t replace lawyers. It will change how we do the work and how we train new lawyers. The second change matters more.
Patrice notes that the entry-level work junior lawyers historically performed is getting pushed to the bots, and Biglaw associate classes are getting smaller. That should worry anyone who cares about where the next generation of lawyers comes from.
I remember being a paralegal and then a junior associate. I scoured documents and case law and prepared memos and chronologies. I remember how heavily that responsibility weighed on me. I had the technical skills. I did not yet have the legal judgment. I was afraid a partner would rely on my work and I would get something wrong.
Through repetition, under supervision, I learned what mattered and what didn’t. I learned what a partner would ask before the partner asked it.
If junior lawyers no longer build judgment by grinding through document review and research memos, where will they build it?
Recalibrating The Senior-Junior Relationship
I believe new lawyers will learn by digging into how AI does the work and validating it. The junior lawyer’s job shifts from producing the first draft to questioning it. Why did the tool reach this conclusion? What authority supports it? What did it leave out? Would this hold up in front of a judge, a regulator, or opposing counsel? That is a harder skill to teach than drafting a memo from scratch. It also requires senior lawyers to change. Partners and GCs can no longer simply review the junior lawyer’s output. They need to review the junior lawyer’s validation process. They need to explain why they trust one answer and push back on another.
The senior-junior relationship was always an apprenticeship. In the AI era, it has to become an apprenticeship in judgment.
A Word To Professors
Law schools need to rethink this too. Professors should allow students to use AI, provided the professor will actually examine the work and require the student to validate it.
If we allow AI without demanding validation, we teach students bad habits. They learn to trust output they don’t understand. Those habits are hard to break, even for students who manage to pass the bar. Their future employers and clients will pay for that.
Banning AI isn’t the answer either. Our students will use these tools on their first day of practice. Our job is to make sure they use them as lawyers.
We Have Been Here Before
I am old enough to remember the birth of the internet and the move from books to online research. People worried then that lawyers would lose the ability to research. Instead, the profession adapted. The best lawyers learned to use the new tools without giving up the judgment the tools couldn’t supply.
AI is a tool like any other tool. It is more capable than anything we have had before, so the stakes are higher. Lawyers who treat it as a shortcut will get caught. Lawyers who treat it as a starting point and validate the work will deliver better results than ever.
The work may not get faster. It will get better, and clients will pay for that.
Lisa Lang is an accomplished in-house lawyer and thought leader dedicated to empowering fellow legal professionals. She offers insights and resources tailored for in-house counsel through her website and blog, Why This, Not That™ (www.lawyerlisalang.com). Lisa actively engages with the legal community via LinkedIn, sharing her expertise and fostering meaningful connections. You can reach her at [email protected], connect on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawyerlisalang/).
