Time is not on the side of the billable hour. Making lawyers account for every chunk of their working lives is not entirely healthy. But advances in generative artificial intelligence look set to put pressure on the legal profession’s traditional charging structure anyway. The disruption could be painful.
For now, most lawyers say they are optimistic about the impact on margins and revenues of adopting technology that can summarise, search, draft and review. Many are hoping for productivity gains that will help them do more — and sell more — billable work.
But there will be losers too. A third of UK law firms polled by PwC think generative AI will have a negative impact on profits and margins. AI might reduce one of the biggest firms’ competitive advantages, namely having large numbers of junior staff who can be deployed on large, complex lawsuits and transactions.