AI is entering legal workflows with growing inevitability and can increasingly run business processes autonomously. The tool carries significant transformational potential and substantial risk. Designing human roles into modern legal workflows is a central operational challenge, including determining the appropriate level of human involvement. Firms report that adopting AI tools has become business as usual, that AI drives demand for cross-functional collaboration and redefines roles, and that adoption is accelerating from both top-down interest and bottom-up experimentation. New norms are emerging irreversibly, with disruptive AI reshaping workflows and transforming firm operations more profoundly than the transition to the cloud.
AI is entering legal workflows with a sense of inevitability. To borrow from Hemingway, imagine a conversation in five to ten years between two Managing Partners: "How did your firm's legal workflows get so completely taken over by AI?" "Two ways," the other replies. "Gradually, then suddenly." This article is not about whether that outcome is right or wrong or whether AI is good or bad. AI is, fundamentally, a tool - like many others that have come before it. However, this particular tool can increasingly run business processes autonomously, including legal workflows. As such, it carries significant transformational potential and risk.
Across our three firms, a few clear themes emerged: 1. Adopting AI tools has already become business as usual in many firms. 2. AI is driving demand for new forms of cross-functional collaboration and redefining roles, fueling momentum for innovation. 3. The pace of adoption is accelerating, driven by both top-down interest and bottom-up experimentation. In many ways, new norms have already been set irreversibly. While not every AI tool will withstand the test of time, the overall impact of disruptive AI is undeniable. It is reshaping legal workflows and transforming firm operations in ways more profound than even the transition to the cloud.
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