The idea of technological progress in the legal sector has for a long time been presented as a promise, and at times even treated as an inevitable prediction, stating that legal departments which fail to meet new technological requirements will soon go out of existence. Based on this line of reasoning, there is very little or no place for cost centers in a company’s structure, (Legal being one of the major ones).
Depending on who you ask, automation could either be comparable to the invention of faster-than-light travel for the traditional legal department, or it might simply be another tool used to make matters more cumbersome.
AI and automation tools, or the teams behind them, present a vision of an elevated, automated, and strategically-minded legal team. Gone will be the document backlogs, replaced by improved workflows that ensure operational efficiency. Through very exaggerated Nietzschean lenses, the idea emerges that it’s time for legal professionals to evolve. That freed from mundane compliance and repetitive work, attorneys will become their version of the Übermensch, one that can artfully extract millions of dollars from a single third-party MSA.
Whilst a bit out there, this exaggerated premise reflects the wider argument being sold to C-suites across many industries. A vision of outcomes and outputs that free the lawyer from the grasp of managerial work, so that legal ceases to be a cost center and turns into a revenue producer.
Every executive buyer has heard this pitch. Has the idea been realized?
How the world sees Legal now
Automation in the legal sphere is a much-needed and important development, and this is not a case to downplay it. The pace of business is increasing, and every department needs to play its part in speeding up the process. When the right AI tools are in place, contracts reach sales faster, signatures are collected on the spot, and compliance challenges do not hold up operations teams. There’s no point in any organization pushing for efficiency if everyone has to count sheep while waiting for one department to operate in its traditional, established manner.
The conclusion is that the cultural evolution of legal departments and their further integration into strategic decision making was inevitable, nothing akin to providence, but a much-needed business evolution.
There’s a caveat, though. The free time isn’t being utilized to focus on strategic judgment in many organizations. Instead, it became system administration, configuring tools, triaging exceptions, managing vendors, supervising the very systems that were supposed to do the supervising. And with that, the perception of legal professionals changes too.
Rather than simply changing, the role of legal professionals is losing its traditional significance. They are now often viewed similarly to IT professionals, who, while respected, have not held the same authority within organizations. This shift is understandable, as automation reduces the need for supervision, which in turn diminishes perceived authority. As a result, problem-solving remains the most visible skill, a strength shared by both professions but more commonly linked to IT.
The role’s commanding rigor (still needed) is outweighed by the benefits of automation. A compromise that’s hard to celebrate, to say the least.
Not a failure of the profession
The changes, the erosion of the profession’s reputation, none of it is a representation of the value that Legal provides to business. Even to qualify legal involvement as “value” is a demotion of what any aspiring organization needs to reach its goals.
The distinction is that current competitive dynamics require that areas perceived as cost centers present revenue. Legal can easily do that. Value is constantly in their hands as they manage business relationships, deliverables, negotiations, outcomes, and numbers. Everything is laid out in their contracts, which are charts for business efficiency.
Ironically, the main barrier to strategic efficiency in most departments was the lack of capacity that AI now addresses. In Legal, limited resources and lean teams left no time to reconsider workflows. Lawyers focused on processing tasks because circumstances required it. While this approach was appropriate then, it is no longer necessary. Misunderstanding these changes can reinforce outdated practice.
What are the stakes?
In this game of devil’s advocate, the two sides are laid out. Business efficiency against the legal professional’s outlook. But the reality is that when Legal is slow, or reduced to processing, the business itself suffers. The organization reorganizes to route around the bottleneck, and what gets routed around never gets counseled.
Less time at the desk pushing paper doesn’t mean less valuable, but the judgment question isn’t professional vanity but an operating problem. The speed at which advice is now demanded has itself become one of the profession’s top complexity drivers, and the push toward paying for outcomes over hours is the same pressure wearing a pricing label.
The truth is that the method of working established in the past may not be around in a decade, not only because of the nature of legal practice. The consumer will also be given the means through AI, so the legal industry will struggle to keep up with the technology. It will, however, have to catch up with the consumer who is empowered by these tools. The actions being taken at the present time by forward-looking organizations will guarantee competitiveness in the future, and that involves moving more quickly.
Essentially, it’s time to get on with the program and embrace the tools that allow for positive change to manifest.
The question remains
Many general counsels are now deeply involved in enterprise leadership and throughout the decision-making process, while others still remain engaged mainly at important decision points. This difference is due to variations in operating models, governance structures, and the degree to which legal expertise is incorporated into the organisation’s strategic framework.
This is no criticism of AI. The tools that are part of the ongoing technological revolution have greatly affected how legal work is carried out. The notion of cleaning the pipeline is real. The promise as it has been sold may not be the full picture.
The potential and the systems do exist. The question that remains, and the one worth taking forward to the next issue, is simple: what are we clearing the legal pipeline for?
