Extract from Jason Milch’s article “Rethinking Law Firm Client Service in the AI Era“
Law firm leaders have already accepted that AI is here to stay. What is less settled is why familiar decision-making approaches suddenly feel inadequate.
More and more, we are seeing choices that once lived comfortably inside walled-off committees now spill into pricing, staffing, risk, and client relationships. AI has a way of collapsing those questions into a single conversation because, whether firms intend it to or not, its impact across all business functions is pervasive. The result is a growing sense that the old playbook no longer fits the environment firms are now operating in.
AI is reshaping the legal industry. Just not in the way many conversations would have you believe. At the surface, AI can make lawyers more efficient, but its deeper, more fundamental effect is that it brings long-standing assumptions into sharper relief. How value is created. How work is staffed and priced. How risk accumulates over time. How decisions move through a partnership. Again, we are seeing practices that once functioned independently now influence one another in ways that are impossible to ignore.
