Extract from Matt Bares’ article, “Law Firms’ AI Opportunity Is in the Back Office..”
In a business that sells time, faster doesn’t automatically show up as more revenue. Attorney-facing AI runs headfirst into the billable hour, and its value depends on attorneys changing how they work, which is a hard thing to do inside a law firm.
A few weeks ago I wrote a piece here in Legaltech News arguing that law firms don’t have an AI problem, they have a deployment problem. That one was about the unglamorous groundwork: infrastructure, data cleanup, governance. This one is about the opportunity most firms are missing.
It isn’t with the attorneys.
Almost every AI conversation in legal right now is about attorney work. Drafting, review, research, contract analysis. Those tools are real, they’re getting better fast, and firms will need them to stay competitive. But look at what they do: they help attorneys work faster. In a business that sells time, faster doesn’t automatically show up as more revenue. Attorney-facing AI runs headfirst into the billable hour, and its value depends on attorneys changing how they work, which is a hard thing to do inside a law firm.
