Gen AI will bring an end to the era when lawyers' value hinged on performing billable work. Grab the coming opportunity to re-prioritize your daily activities and redefine your professional purpose.
I am a co - owner (non practising) of a law firm based in Australia that has focused on value rather than the billable hour for over 10 years. I could not agree more with what you say Jordan. Our experience shows that what some may refer to as 'non billable time' does actually equate to value that clients are happy to pay for. It's all about the outputs and the outcomes and they can include the way you deliver the services and the use of technology. Understanding the value you bring will be critical to those navigating the changes that Gen AI will inevitably bring to the legal ecosystem. I believe that we are at a critical point in the evolution of legal services, one that will hopefully see them much broader and holistic than we have in the past and with the increased use of multi-disciplinary teams.... so many benefits for clients, firms and their teams.
Interesting take! I wonder if the most immediate impact of Gen AI will be an increase in the billable hour rates for the lawyers who are most adept at using AI? That seems like a logical consequence. If so, I would expect practice groups and ultimately firms to be formed more around their use of technology.
A small point in the bigger picture of this article, but it's a shame that Clio's reports don't have more nuanced data on the utilization rate for each practice area. I remember seeing a similar stat in one of their reports years ago and after getting a hold of the 2025 one it still at most only goes to each region.
I remember a professor I had once denying the stat from being true and discouraging me from speaking about it. That said, the more nuanced data would only be a part of it I guess. Beliefs often are not originated in logic but emotions.
That's a good observation about Clio's reports. I'm glad they exist, and I like the fact they're pulled from actual law firm financials, not self-reported surveys. But I also would like the ability to dive deeper into the data and parse it more closely. Some of their findings are sufficiently radical that some more transparency would make them more persuasive.
I retired from practice ten years ago and spent the latter part of my career in house, where I was not required to bill my time. But early in my law firm days, Lexis became available and we no longer needed to spend so many hours finding cases in those massive West tomes and then checking whether they remained good law in Shepherd's. (Shepherd's were giant books with tiny print that tracked appellate results.) There was panic among the junior litigation associates about how we could maintain our billable hours. Yet we survived.
When I was in house, I and those in my practice group spent many hours on what would be considered non-billable time, essentially schmoozing with those on the business side, and the resulting good relationships we developed made them trust our legal work more.
I graduated from Catholic Law School in 1996. The graduation speaker was former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. His speech was literally on billable hours and the effect on the legal profession. I remember that my mom was angry that she flew across the country from CA to hear his speech about billable hours.
I am a co - owner (non practising) of a law firm based in Australia that has focused on value rather than the billable hour for over 10 years. I could not agree more with what you say Jordan. Our experience shows that what some may refer to as 'non billable time' does actually equate to value that clients are happy to pay for. It's all about the outputs and the outcomes and they can include the way you deliver the services and the use of technology. Understanding the value you bring will be critical to those navigating the changes that Gen AI will inevitably bring to the legal ecosystem. I believe that we are at a critical point in the evolution of legal services, one that will hopefully see them much broader and holistic than we have in the past and with the increased use of multi-disciplinary teams.... so many benefits for clients, firms and their teams.
Interesting take! I wonder if the most immediate impact of Gen AI will be an increase in the billable hour rates for the lawyers who are most adept at using AI? That seems like a logical consequence. If so, I would expect practice groups and ultimately firms to be formed more around their use of technology.
A small point in the bigger picture of this article, but it's a shame that Clio's reports don't have more nuanced data on the utilization rate for each practice area. I remember seeing a similar stat in one of their reports years ago and after getting a hold of the 2025 one it still at most only goes to each region.
I remember a professor I had once denying the stat from being true and discouraging me from speaking about it. That said, the more nuanced data would only be a part of it I guess. Beliefs often are not originated in logic but emotions.
That's a good observation about Clio's reports. I'm glad they exist, and I like the fact they're pulled from actual law firm financials, not self-reported surveys. But I also would like the ability to dive deeper into the data and parse it more closely. Some of their findings are sufficiently radical that some more transparency would make them more persuasive.
I retired from practice ten years ago and spent the latter part of my career in house, where I was not required to bill my time. But early in my law firm days, Lexis became available and we no longer needed to spend so many hours finding cases in those massive West tomes and then checking whether they remained good law in Shepherd's. (Shepherd's were giant books with tiny print that tracked appellate results.) There was panic among the junior litigation associates about how we could maintain our billable hours. Yet we survived.
When I was in house, I and those in my practice group spent many hours on what would be considered non-billable time, essentially schmoozing with those on the business side, and the resulting good relationships we developed made them trust our legal work more.
I graduated from Catholic Law School in 1996. The graduation speaker was former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. His speech was literally on billable hours and the effect on the legal profession. I remember that my mom was angry that she flew across the country from CA to hear his speech about billable hours.