AI will strip law firms and law schools of their commodity features. Their future depends on whether they can rebuild around their highest-value functions and their trust-bearing core.
Jordan, I think you're onto something important here, especially in your emphasis on trust.
Reading this, I found myself returning to something that has been reverberating in my mind a lot lately. I tend to think less about the institutions and more about the people inside them. If legal intelligence becomes increasingly abundant, then many of the things that brought lawyers status and value for decades are going to be viewed differently. Not disappear, but occupy a different place than they once did.
In particular, my perception is that most of the discussion around AI in law seems to focus on technology and business models. Those are obviously important. But I wonder whether legal leadership is underestimating the personal side of the transition.
Many senior lawyers built careers around intelligence, expertise, analytical rigor, and mastery of information. Those qualities deserve respect. They also become part of identity. A lawyer can fully understand the need for change and still struggle to adapt to it. In my experience, the obstacle is often not disagreement with the future. It is the challenge of letting go of a version of oneself that has worked very well for a very long time.
Lawyers are particularly interesting in this regard because the profession trains people to analyze, explain, and argue. Those skills are enormously valuable. They can also make it easier to intellectualize a transition than to live through it.
Your article focuses on trust. I agree that trust becomes more important, not less. But trust ultimately gets carried by individual lawyers. The profession already struggles with anxiety, burnout, and distress. It seems likely that a transition of this magnitude will create additional pressure, particularly among the people who have invested the most in succeeding under the existing model. When the ground beneath you does not seem stable, you trust yourself less, and it becomes increasingly difficult to exude trust.
That strikes me less as a wellness issue than a leadership issue.
I am working on a manifesto for AI in our human-centred law firm and your excellent piece resonated. Only last week we gathered our partners to look at this and with care to ensure our culture and what makes us who we are is supported not supplanted by AI. A reliance on empathy, judgment and trust is what will always endure in my opinion. And…it won’t be easy. Your piece speaks to the fundamental redesign for many law firms. High staff costs and fixed overheads will feel even more cumbersome as some supertankers seek to turn, to downsize and set new courses.
Jordan, thank you for your well reasoned and well articulated article. If these institutions are planning on "trust" as an asset, they may find themselves pushing a rope uphill. That is to say, I believe their transformations will be severe.
Respect for the rule of law is waning globally and the USA is no exception. In 2025, Gallup reported trust in the US judicial system had dropped from 60% in 2020 to 35%. Only 20% of the population believes that lawyers' ethical standards are high or very high. According to the ABA, 58% of law schools professors believe legal education is headed in the wrong direction. And between 58% and 73% of law school graduates believe their institutions failed to adequately prepare them for legal practice.
I would argue that law firms and law schools have not survived and, in many cases, thrived because of their inherent value (bundled or no). I believe these institutions have unfairly benefited from their collective monopolies in providing legal services. When they are able to be displaced by technology and institutions that don't require monopolies to be competitive, their adjustments to the new reality will be painful.
On the plus side, AI brings the possibility of leveling the playing field between large law firms and solo lawyers practicing with integrity. But AI is not plug and play. So for a solo right now it does not automatically improve efficiency.
Jordan, I think you're onto something important here, especially in your emphasis on trust.
Reading this, I found myself returning to something that has been reverberating in my mind a lot lately. I tend to think less about the institutions and more about the people inside them. If legal intelligence becomes increasingly abundant, then many of the things that brought lawyers status and value for decades are going to be viewed differently. Not disappear, but occupy a different place than they once did.
In particular, my perception is that most of the discussion around AI in law seems to focus on technology and business models. Those are obviously important. But I wonder whether legal leadership is underestimating the personal side of the transition.
Many senior lawyers built careers around intelligence, expertise, analytical rigor, and mastery of information. Those qualities deserve respect. They also become part of identity. A lawyer can fully understand the need for change and still struggle to adapt to it. In my experience, the obstacle is often not disagreement with the future. It is the challenge of letting go of a version of oneself that has worked very well for a very long time.
Lawyers are particularly interesting in this regard because the profession trains people to analyze, explain, and argue. Those skills are enormously valuable. They can also make it easier to intellectualize a transition than to live through it.
Your article focuses on trust. I agree that trust becomes more important, not less. But trust ultimately gets carried by individual lawyers. The profession already struggles with anxiety, burnout, and distress. It seems likely that a transition of this magnitude will create additional pressure, particularly among the people who have invested the most in succeeding under the existing model. When the ground beneath you does not seem stable, you trust yourself less, and it becomes increasingly difficult to exude trust.
That strikes me less as a wellness issue than a leadership issue.
I am working on a manifesto for AI in our human-centred law firm and your excellent piece resonated. Only last week we gathered our partners to look at this and with care to ensure our culture and what makes us who we are is supported not supplanted by AI. A reliance on empathy, judgment and trust is what will always endure in my opinion. And…it won’t be easy. Your piece speaks to the fundamental redesign for many law firms. High staff costs and fixed overheads will feel even more cumbersome as some supertankers seek to turn, to downsize and set new courses.
Great read. Thanks Jordan.
Thanks you very much, and best wishes for the success of your efforts!
Jordan, thank you for your well reasoned and well articulated article. If these institutions are planning on "trust" as an asset, they may find themselves pushing a rope uphill. That is to say, I believe their transformations will be severe.
Respect for the rule of law is waning globally and the USA is no exception. In 2025, Gallup reported trust in the US judicial system had dropped from 60% in 2020 to 35%. Only 20% of the population believes that lawyers' ethical standards are high or very high. According to the ABA, 58% of law schools professors believe legal education is headed in the wrong direction. And between 58% and 73% of law school graduates believe their institutions failed to adequately prepare them for legal practice.
I would argue that law firms and law schools have not survived and, in many cases, thrived because of their inherent value (bundled or no). I believe these institutions have unfairly benefited from their collective monopolies in providing legal services. When they are able to be displaced by technology and institutions that don't require monopolies to be competitive, their adjustments to the new reality will be painful.
On the plus side, AI brings the possibility of leveling the playing field between large law firms and solo lawyers practicing with integrity. But AI is not plug and play. So for a solo right now it does not automatically improve efficiency.
Excelente artículo.
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