A long-standing industry refrain holds that it’s easier to change the law than to change the firms that practice it. The article argues that if you transported a lawyer from the 1970s into a modern big law firm, the basic work would look familiar: associates still labor over documents, bill in six-minute increments, and revenue accrues up the chain to partners at year-end. This structure has remained largely unchanged for decades.
Historically, large law firms have not invested heavily for the future because the nature of much legal work — for example contract review — requires little capital expenditure, and U.S. rules have largely kept private equity out of the business. Traditional professional ethics and the personality profile of people drawn to law further temper profit-maximizing impulses.
Artificial intelligence threatens to upend that model. The piece argues few enterprises are as exposed to AI’s effects: AI can already perform much of the day-to-day legal work at a fraction of the cost, but adopting it requires significant investment and long-term planning.
Who can afford to change?
Rachel Proffitt, chief executive of Silicon Valley firm Cooley, told the writer that the prevailing ‘‘why fix what isn’t broken?’’ mindset may dissolve because AI forces firms to ask whether the old model is really working. The article notes that Cooley is building an AI-powered self-service portal intended to handle simpler legal tasks.
The author suggests that having something meaningful to spend money on beyond bonuses will quickly split the market. Some firms can absorb large technology expenditures — the piece cites Kirkland’s so-called $500 million AI investment bogey as an example — while firms without those resources will likely seek scale through consolidation.
New entrants and the war for talent
Ryan Daniels, co-founder and CEO of AI-native law firm Crosby, said he has been surprised by the urgency shown by large firms such as Kirkland and Cooley. Daniels argued that clients primarily pay for ‘‘this person seems to know what they’re talking about, and they told me it’s OK,’’ while much of the rest of the service compresses to the cost of a token. Firms that reach the low-cost AI-enabled delivery model earlier will gain an advantage, but the next competition will be over control of the layer that supplies good judgment.
The article also cites reporting from Bloomberg Law that Big Law is facing a talent war, with an increasing number of associates and seasoned lawyers leaving traditional firms for AI-native firms.
Implications and outlook
According to the piece, AI will accelerate a division within the legal sector: well-capitalized firms that can make large AI investments will preserve or extend their competitive positions, while less-capitalized firms will pursue consolidation to achieve scale and financial security. The transition requires upfront spending and strategic planning, and is shaped by existing regulatory constraints, professional norms, and the pace at which firms deploy useful AI systems.
Quotes and perspectives from Rachel Proffitt (Cooley) and Ryan Daniels (Crosby) in the article underscore that the market may rapidly reorganize around those firms able to invest substantially in AI and control the higher-order judgment layer above automated work.
