With AI-powered tools promising efficiency gains and cost savings, AI is fundamentally changing the practice of law. But as AI adoption accelerates, major questions arise: Will AI replace lawyers? What does AI adoption mean for the billable hour? And can hallucinations ever be fully eliminated?
To explore these issues, we surveyed 16 tech leaders who are at the forefront of AI-driven transformation. They provided unfiltered insights on the biggest AI adoption challenges, AI’s effect on billing models, the potential for AI to replace lawyers, and the persistent problem of hallucinations in legal AI tools. Here’s what they had to say:
Why Are Law Firms Hesitant to Adopt AI Tools?
According to our survey of tech leaders, law firms’ hesitation in adopting AI is driven by several key factors, primarily concerns about accuracy, risk, and economic incentives. Many firms worry that AI tools can generate incorrect or misleading information while presenting it with unjustified confidence, making mistakes hard to detect. Additionally, larger firms that rely on the billable hour see efficiency-driven AI as a potential threat to their revenue models. Other firms lack a clear AI strategy, making AI adoption and integration difficult. Trust, data privacy, and liability remain major concerns.
More specifically, here’s what tech leaders had to say about law firm hesitancy in adopting AI:
Scott Stevenson, CEO, Spellbook:
- Daniel Lewis, CEO, LegalOn Technologies: “Law firms are hesitant to adopt AI over risk and liability concerns — accuracy and client confidentiality matter most. They need professional-grade AI that is accurate and secure. Solve that, and firms will break through business and organizational barriers—unlocking immense value for themselves and their clients.”
- Kara Peterson, Co-Founder, descrybe.ai: “Because you can’t really count on it to be right—at least not yet. And unlike humans, when AI is unsure, it doesn’t admit it. In fact, it speaks with great authority and persuasiveness even when it is completely wrong. This means human lawyers must double-check everything because the errors are hard to spot. For many firms, this is simply too big a barrier to overcome. They are waiting for more reliable and error-free tools before jumping in.”
- Katon Luaces, President & CTO, PointOne: “The main reason law firms are hesitant to adopt AI is reliability.”
- Ted Theodoropoulos, CEO, Infodash: “A primary reason law firms hesitate to adopt AI is the absence of a comprehensive strategy. According to Thomson Reuters’ 2024 Generative AI in Professional Services survey, only 10% of law firms have a generative AI policy. Policies typically stem from well-defined strategies; without a clear strategy, formulating effective policies becomes challenging. Consequently, it’s likely that fewer than 10% of firms possess an AI strategy. Often, firms appoint C-suite or director-level AI/innovation roles without a pre-established strategy, expecting these individuals to develop one. However, strategic planning is most effective when initiated from the top down, and lacking this foundation can lead to unsuccessful AI integration.”
- Dorna Moini, CEO/Founder, Gavel: “Law firms are mainly cautious because they need to ensure that any new technology meets their high standards for accuracy and confidentiality. They have built a reputation on careful, detailed work and worry that premature adoption might compromise quality. However, as AI improves and its track record strengthens, it can support lawyers in routine tasks without sacrificing the meticulous approach that defines legal practice.”
- Troy Doucet, Founder, AI.Law: “Fear. Perfect is currently the enemy of the good, and as that subsides, lawyers will use it more.”
- Colin Levy, Director of Legal, Malbek: “The risk of hallucinating, where a tool produces inaccurate or misleading information, is a key reason. Secondarily to this the lack of transparency around AI tools and the data they use/rely on is another cause of concern and hesitancy for many law firms.”
- Gil Banyas. Co-Founder & COO, Chamelio: “The #1 reason law firms are hesitant to adopt AI is the lack of urgency due to their billable hour business model. Since firms generate revenue based on time spent, there’s no immediate financial incentive to implement efficiency-boosting AI tools that could reduce billable hours.”
- Arunim Samat, CEO, TrueLaw: “Impact to the billable hour.”
- Greg Siskind, Co-founder, Visalaw.ai: “Concerns regarding answer quality.”
- Charein Faraj, Legal Operations Manager, LexCheck Inc.: “The answer depends on a law firm’s familiarity with AI and its awareness of the current legal AI market. Attorneys with little to no understanding of AI tend to be hesitant, often due to concerns about security, accuracy, and reliability. Those with some knowledge of AI and legal technology are more skeptical about its practical applications and return on investment, particularly given that many legal AI solutions require lengthy, complex implementations and significant change management.”
- Mitchell Kossoris, Co-Founder and CEO, Deposely: “Data privacy and hallucinations are the most common concerns we hear from law firms. Lawyers want to ensure the data they provide will not go towards training any models, and they want to know that the outputs of models are reliable and grounded in truth.”
- Chris Williams, Head of Strategic Partnerships & Community, Leya: “Law firms need to be sure that any AI tool they adopt will not compromise the precision or confidentiality required in legal work.”
- Jenna Earnshaw, Co-founder & COO, Wisedocs: “Trust. Lawyers need to have complete confidence in their tools, and AI can sometimes feel like a ‘black box’—making decisions without clear explanations. If they don’t fully understand how AI reaches conclusions, it’s hard to trust it with high-stakes legal work. But here’s the thing—AI has been used in law for over a decade. Tools like Technology-Assisted Review (TAR) have proven to be as reliable as human review when used correctly. The hesitation isn’t really about whether AI can be trustworthy; it’s about transparency and control. The good news? With the right safeguards, oversight, and clear explanations of AI-driven decisions, law firms can use AI confidently. It’s not about replacing legal judgment—it’s about supporting it with smarter, faster tools.”
Where Does AI Excel, and Where Is It Still Overhyped?
Legal AI tools have made significant strides in the past two years, particularly in automating routine tasks that involve large volumes of data and well-defined processes. However, AI still struggles with more nuanced legal work that requires contextual understanding and strategic reasoning. Most legal tech leaders identified clear areas where AI is proving effective, alongside areas where expectations may still outpace reality.
Currently, AI excels in contract review, where it can analyze and summarize contracts with high accuracy. It is also highly effective in document review and due diligence, flagging inconsistencies, and surfacing relevant documents. Additionally, AI has reliably streamlined e-discovery, significantly reducing the time spent reviewing electronic documents. Another strength is its ability to summarize and extract data from documents.
However, AI remains less reliable in legal brief writing, as it struggles with complex legal arguments and strategic reasoning. Similarly, while it can return results for case law research, it often fails to grasp legal context, hierarchy, and nuances—though some legal tech leaders hold differing views on its efficacy in this area.
Legal tech leaders shared their insights into this “jagged frontier” of AI’s capabilities:
- Scott Stevenson, CEO, Spellbook: “Excelling: Contract review and drafting; Hype: Litigation brief writing.”
- Daniel Lewis, CEO, LegalOn Technologies: “There is a ‘jagged frontier’ between what AI handles well and where it can improve. It excels at repetitive and time-consuming tasks with clear guardrails, like contract review, drafting, and some types of Q&A, while less structured tasks like legal research carry a higher risk of hallucination. Contract review stands out for its defined standards, verifiable outputs, and clear objectives.”
- Kara Peterson, Co-Founder, descrybe.ai: “AI is incredible at generating and interpreting text. However, it is not yet good at producing error-free, multistep legal workflows—though it is getting close. I wouldn’t call agentic AI in law “hype,” but it is still some distance away from being fully reliable.”
- Katon Luaces, President & CTO, PointOne: “The great majority of legal tasks have yet to be mastered by AI. However, there are many tasks frequently done by lawyers that AI is genuinely excelling at. For example, AI is excellent at administrative work such as filling in billing codes and writing time entry descriptions—tasks that aren’t legal tasks historically done by lawyers.”
- Ted Theodoropoulos, CEO, Infodash: “AI is excellent at acting as a sounding board during ideation and bringing additional perspective to the creative process. That said, it’s not good at generating novel ideas as it is limited to the confines of its training data. AI is good at summarization, extraction, and classification but still has a lot of room for improvement. For higher risk tasks it shouldn’t be relied upon solely. Currently, AI is not good at understanding context and nuance. As the infamous Stanford paper on legal research tools pointed out last year, these tools misunderstand holdings, struggle to distinguish between legal actors, and fail to grasp the order of authority.”
- Dorna Moini, CEO/Founder, Gavel: “Today, AI is particularly effective at tasks like document review, legal research, and contract analysis. It can process large volumes of information quickly and flag important details for further review. On the other hand, AI is still far from being able to handle complex legal strategy or provide the nuanced judgment that experienced lawyers offer.”
- Colin Levy, Director of Legal, Malbek: “AI is still not great at handling complexity or ambiguity, but some tools are getting better. Currently existing tools, however, are really good at conducting basic legal research and document review and analysis. AI tools are best at specific and well-defined tasks.”
- Gil Banyas. Co-Founder & COO, Chamelio: “Genuinely Excelling: Document review & due diligence (finding relevant clauses, inconsistencies across contracts), legal research (case law/statute search, surfacing relevant precedents), and contract analysis (template comparison, risk flagging). Current hype: Legal writing from scratch, strategy/counseling, negotiation, and settlement work.”
- Arunim Samat, CEO, TrueLaw: “AI excels in document review for eDiscovery; however, prompt engineering complicates the measurement of CAL review metrics. Caselaw research remains little more than an advanced search function in a database, as AI models are not yet capable of formulating case strategies while accurately citing relevant case law. Teaching LLMs to shepardize effectively remains a complex challenge.”
- Greg Siskind, Co-founder, Visalaw.ai: “Practice management advice, legal research (via curated libraries), summarization, legal drafting and analysis.”
- Charein Faraj, Legal Operations Manager, LexCheck Inc.: “E-discovery (and other procedural solutions) are likely the most advanced so far, as they are easier to develop and face fewer challenges related to issues like hallucinations and transparency. Meanwhile, some tools in more substantive areas, such as legal research, are marketed with great enthusiasm but may not fully meet expectations just yet. However, that doesn’t mean they won’t get there—it may simply take more time for them to be perfected.”
- Mitchell Kossoris, Co-Founder and CEO, Deposely: “AI is excelling at tasks where it has access to a wealth of “grounding” data. Given the valid concerns around hallucinations, the most effective work an AI can do relies less on what the AI model intrinsically “knows” and more on analyzing data provided by the user or external sources (such as case law). For example, AI excels at document review because it’s processing and transforming existing data and at much faster rates than humans can.”
- Troy Doucet, Founder, AI.Law: “The hype/reality issue is more from the companies that say they do AI but don’t really have an offering. We find AI can do just about anything if you know how to work with it.”
- Chris Williams, Head of Strategic Partnerships & Community, Leya: “Automating repetitive tasks such as document review, data extraction, and research. AI’s ability to aggregate information from multiple sources demonstrates that AI is already effective in these areas. AI still struggles with tasks that require nuanced judgment and strategic thinking.”
- Jenna Earnshaw, Co-founder & COO, Wisedocs: “AI is making a real impact in legal work, especially when it comes to handling large volumes of documents. One area where it truly shines is summarizing lengthy legal materials—think trial packages, depositions, and case files. Plus, AI helps minimize human error by ensuring critical information isn’t overlooked—especially in claims and litigation.”
Will “Hallucinations” in Legal AI Tools Ever Be Eliminated?
AI hallucinations—when a model generates incorrect or fabricated information—remain one of the biggest concerns for lawyers when using AI-powered legal tools. While advancements in AI continue to mitigate these issues, experts largely agree that hallucinations will likely persist to some degree due to the probabilistic nature of LLMs.
Nonetheless, some legal tech leaders believe that hallucinations can be eliminated completely.
Legal tech companies are taking different approaches to address the “hallucination challenge,” from refining training data to improving AI oversight and validation systems. Many companies focus on “grounding” AI models in authoritative legal content, ensuring they pull from verified sources rather than relying solely on predictive algorithms. Others are developing fact-checking layers and human-in-the-loop review processes to minimize errors before outputs reach end users.
Here’s what the heads of these companies had to say about hallucinations:
- Scott Stevenson, CEO, Spellbook: “If you force an AI tool to do something that is impossible, it will hallucinate. If you give it achievable tasks and supply it with correct information that can fit in its short-term memory, it generally will not. We no longer hear of customers complaining about hallucination at Spellbook.”
- Daniel Lewis, CEO, LegalOn Technologies: “Eliminating hallucinations entirely may be out of reach for now but substantially reducing them is achievable. At LegalOn, we do this by grounding AI in authoritative legal content built by our in-house lawyers, ensuring accuracy from the start. Thoughtful product design can also make a big difference in helping users quickly evaluate the reliability of an AI-generated answer.”
- Kara Peterson, Co-Founder, descrybe.ai: “Given how quickly AI has advanced, it’s hard to imagine that hallucinations won’t eventually be solved. I expect AI will develop self-monitoring capabilities, which could potentially eliminate this issue once and for all.”
- Katon Luaces, President & CTO, PointOne: “Some amount of ‘hallucination’ is done even by humans when reasoning and writing, we just frame them differently. These errors are fundamental to the pursuit of complex tasks and will never be eliminated completely. That said, for certain tasks, AI already has a lower error rate than the 75th percentile lawyer and will continue to improve.”
- Ted Theodoropoulos, CEO, Infodash: “Currently, no legal tech company has completely eradicated hallucinations in AI outputs. Some vendors claim to have solved this issue, but such assertions often don’t withstand thorough examination. Given the substantial investments in AI research, many of the brightest minds are dedicated to addressing this challenge, which suggests a positive outlook. However, as of now, hallucinations remain an inherent aspect of large language models, and ongoing efforts continue to mitigate this issue.”
- Nathan Walter, CEO, Briefpoint: “Hallucinations are a symptom of LLM’s infancy – not a requisite part of their functionality. They can and will be solved through ‘trust but verify’ implementations wherein all generated citations can be quickly verified by the user.”
- Dorna Moini, CEO/Founder, Gavel: “LLMs sometimes generate errors or ‘hallucinations’ due to the way they predict text based on patterns in data. Developers are making progress with safeguards and improved models to reduce these occurrences. While it may not be possible to completely eliminate them, continuous improvements should help make AI more reliable for legal applications.”
- Colin Levy, Director of Legal, Malbek: “Unclear. This seems to be awfully dependent on a) how these models are designed and b) the amount (breadth + depth) of data used to train the models on. Currently, data set size is a major limitation of existing models.”
- Gil Banyas. Co-Founder & COO, Chamelio: “Hallucinations are an inherent feature of LLMs, but that’s okay. Leading legal tech companies are building comprehensive systems where LLMs are just one component. With the right checks and balances in place, hallucinations can be effectively contained.”
- Arunim Samat, CEO, TrueLaw: “LLMs, by their nature, are probabilistic generating machines, and with probability, nothing is certain. Hallucinations are highly use-case-specific. In document classification for eDiscovery, hallucinations are easier to measure using standard precision and recall metrics. In contrast, generative tasks present greater challenges, though the risk can be minimized—almost to zero—using grounding techniques. However, given the probabilistic nature of LLMs, there are no statistical guarantees. Eliminating hallucinations entirely would imply creating an “information black hole”—a system where infinite information can be stored within a finite model and retrieved with 100% accuracy. In its current form, I don’t believe this is possible.”
- Greg Siskind, Co-founder, Visalaw.ai: “I think we will have this problem for a couple of years but at a diminishing rate. I think after about five years or so the problem a lot have largely disappeared.”
- Charein Faraj, Legal Operations Manager, LexCheck Inc.: “Legal tech companies might not be able to eliminate hallucinations entirely, but they’re putting stronger guardrails in place to keep them in check. Engineers are using structured prompts, fine-tuning models, and building smarter architectures to reduce them. Plus, companies are rolling out advanced validation layers, fact-checking systems, and other safeguards to catch and correct errors. While hallucinations are likely to stick around as a natural part of LLMs, these improvements will go a long way in making legal AI more accurate and reliable.”
- Mitchell Kossoris, Co-Founder and CEO, Deposely: “As with any technology, flaws like these will probably never be completely eliminated. However, there have been significant advances both in model technology and in data augmentation in just the last 6 months that have vastly improved accuracy. When paired with improved explainability and citation features, AI-generated responses are becoming much more verifiable and trustworthy.”
- Troy Doucet, Founder, AI.Law: “This actually isn’t hard to avoid from a programming issue for a company building on top of LLMs. The LLMs themselves will figure this out too once they make it a priority.”
- Chris Williams, Head of Strategic Partnerships & Community, Leya: “It’s important to reference citations and rely on validated sources to manage the risk of inaccurate outputs. Some degree of error remains inherent in current AI models, necessitating human review.”
- Jenna Earnshaw, Co-founder & COO, Wisedocs: “AI hallucinations are an inherent challenge of LLMs. While they may never fully disappear, legal tech companies can significantly reduce them with smarter AI design. In law, where accuracy is everything, even one AI-generated mistake—like the Canadian lawyer citing fake precedents—can be a serious liability. But fixing this issue isn’t just about human oversight—it starts with using AI built for the job. How do we cut down on hallucinations? Extractive AI. Instead of generating new interpretations, extractive AI pulls and organizes key details directly from source documents, keeping everything factually accurate.”
Will AI Change the Billable Hour Model?
AI’s increasing role in legal workflows may be putting pressure on the billable hour model. While some firms have already transitioned to flat-fee and subscription-based billing structures, others remain hesitant to abandon traditional hourly billing.
Most legal tech leaders agree that AI will drive efficiency and encourage alternative pricing models, but the complete demise of the billable hour remains unlikely in the near future:
- Scott Stevenson, CEO, Spellbook: “Yes. We see many boutique firms moving into flat fee billing, increasing their margins substantially.”
- Daniel Lewis, CEO, LegalOn Technologies: “Reports about the death of the billable hour continue to feel exaggerated. AI-driven efficiencies will push clients to put pressure on the amount of time billed, but rather than a dramatic overturning, we’ll see adaptation. Many clients still prefer the billable hour for certain work, and firms will evolve to deliver more value and perhaps different services — faster and in less time. The real competition will be in who can leverage AI to provide the best services, not just on billable hours and rates.”
- Kara Peterson, Co-Founder, descrybe.ai: “Absolutely. The billable hour likely won’t disappear entirely, but there will be significant pressure on this payment model, forcing it to evolve. I can envision a future where flat fees and even subscription-based models become far more common. While these changes may start at the lower end of the market, that’s not a given. Additionally, as AI makes time-consuming tasks more efficient, we may actually see hourly rates rise for human lawyers—especially for high-level legal expertise.”
- Katon Luaces, President & CTO, PointOne: “AI will continue to put pressure on law firms to adopt alternative fee arrangements and even make some tasks completely non-billable.”
- Ted Theodoropoulos, CEO, Infodash: “The billable hour has been the cornerstone of the law firm economic model for 50 years, but AI is increasingly challenging its dominance. AI-driven tools are significantly reducing time spent on tasks like document review legal research, and contract drafting. As a result, clients are demanding value-based pricing, pushing firms toward alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) such as fixed fees and subscription models. ALSPs and Big Four firms like KPMG are already leveraging AI for scalable, cost-effective legal services. If traditional firms do not adapt, these entrants will capture the value-driven segment of the market.”
- Nathan Walter, CEO, Briefpoint: “AI is changing the billable hour – many firms using Briefpoint have switched to flat rate billing on the tasks Briefpoint automates (discovery response and request drafting). Elimination of the billable hour is another story, and I don’t think we’ll see that in the next five years – eliminating the billable hour would require a fundamental restructuring of firms’ business model, not to mention a revision of attorney fee-shifting statutes. Law firms will maintain their business model until it doesn’t work. For the business model to ‘not work,’ law firms must lose business because of the billable hour. While we’re seeing significant increases in in-house teams asking about AI usage, that’s a far cry from conditioning representation on flat-rate billing.”
- Dorna Moini, CEO/Founder, Gavel: “AI is already shifting the landscape away from the traditional billable hour by enabling alternative business models. These models can offer clients greater transparency on costs and outcomes while allowing lawyers to work more efficiently and profitably. This change benefits both sides by aligning pricing with value rather than time spent.”
- Colin Levy, Director of Legal, Malbek: “AI will allow law firms to more easily scale work, e.g. take on more work without increasing headcount. AI will also increase competitive pressures from ALSPs and alternative fee arrangements. The outright disappearance of the billable hour is unlikely given current economic and technical factors.”
- Gil Banyas. Co-Founder & COO, Chamelio: “AI won’t eliminate the billable hour in the short term, but it will force firms to evolve their pricing. As routine tasks become automated, firms will need to shift toward value-based pricing for complex work while offering fixed fees for AI-assisted tasks.”
- Arunim Samat, CEO, TrueLaw: “We believe that law firms investing in proprietary AI models will unlock new revenue streams by monetizing their expertise. By training AI on their unique knowledge and experience, firms can offer novel, AI-powered services that were previously impractical. Since these services have predictable costs, they lend themselves well to flat-fee arrangements, allowing firms to introduce new revenue models without immediately disrupting the traditional billable hour structure. We’re already seeing firms offer proactive litigation risk monitoring and other recurring AI-driven services to their clients.”
- Greg Siskind, Co-founder, Visalaw.ai: “I think that is inevitable. And practice areas like immigration, which are largely flat billed already, we’re seeing more rapid adaptation of AI and more innovation in that space. I think the rest of the bar will follow.”
- Charein Faraj, Legal Operations Manager, LexCheck Inc.: “AI will definitely change the billable hour, but it won’t make it disappear entirely. As legal AI tools streamline workflows and improve efficiency, more firms will likely shift toward flat-fee or value-based pricing models, especially for routine work. However, billable hours will still play a role, particularly for complex matters that require deep legal expertise. That said, once firms fully leverage AI, the billable hour may no longer be the most lucrative model.”
- Mitchell Kossoris, Co-Founder and CEO, Deposely: “AI will push the needle towards alternative fee arrangements at a rate faster than ever before. It is inspiring more innovation in how law firms bill their clients, especially for the work that AI is accelerating. However, AI is also increasing efficiency and allowing firms to take on more cases, which could offset this trend and even lead to increased profitability.”
- Troy Doucet, Founder, AI.Law: “In 10 years, we won’t have billable hours the way they exist today, if at all. Value of lawyers will be derived from broader engagement with their clients- things like strategy and risk management.”
- Chris Williams, Head of Strategic Partnerships & Community, Leya: “Efficiency gains from using AI is reducing the time spent on routine work, leading to alternative billing models (such as flat fees or value-based pricing), while the billable hour might still be used as an internal performance metric. Ultimately, AI will likely change how legal work is billed without entirely eliminating traditional metrics.”
- Jenna Earnshaw, Co-founder & COO, Wisedocs: “Absolutely—but not everyone is on board just yet. Some law firms are resistant to AI because it threatens the traditional billable hour model. If AI can handle document review, legal research, and analysis in a fraction of the time, that means fewer billable hours. But here’s the catch: as more firms embrace AI, clients will start expecting the same efficiency everywhere. Law firms that resist AI risk falling behind as clients demand faster, more cost-effective legal services. Instead of measuring value by hours worked, the industry will shift toward a more results-driven approach—where expertise, strategy, and outcomes matter more than time spent on tedious tasks. Billable hours won’t disappear overnight, but AI is already pushing the legal industry toward a future where efficiency and results take center stage.”
Will AI Replace Lawyers?
As AI continues to improve, the question of whether it will replace lawyers remains a topic of debate. While AI excels at automating routine legal tasks, legal tech leaders largely agree that it lacks the judgment, strategic thinking, and interpersonal skills necessary to fully replace attorneys. Instead, AI is largely expected to augment legal professionals, allowing them to focus on higher-value work while automating administrative and repetitive processes.
Here’s what legal tech leaders had to say about whether AI will replace lawyers:
- Scott Stevenson, CEO, Spellbook: “No. Even if you can automate legal work, clients can’t understand what the documents you produce mean, and they ultimately need to be able to trust a human’s judgment. We built a product that cut out lawyers that worked fairly well, six years ago, but most users didn’t like it because they had “DIY anxiety” and ultimately needed a human to guide them through their matter.”
- Daniel Lewis, CEO, LegalOn Technologies: “No, AI will not replace lawyers, but it will change and elevate how they work. In contracts, for example, AI helps with line-by-line contract review, freeing lawyers to focus on judgment, context, and strategy—where expertise makes the biggest impact.”
- Kara Peterson, Co-Founder, descrybe.ai: “In a sense, yes—but not in the way many fear. AI will replace rote, mundane legal tasks, but not the entire legal process. If anything, AI will augment lawyers rather than fully replace them. In fact, the “human-in-the-loop” lawyer will become more critical than ever to handle nuance and complexity that AI simply can’t.”
- Katon Luaces, President & CTO, PointOne: “AI will certainly replace some of the work of lawyers just as lawyers no longer manually shepardize nor personally walk documents to the courthouse. That said, the practice of law is fundamental to government and commerce. While the work of a lawyer may become unrecognizable, there will be individuals who practice law.”
- Ted Theodoropoulos, CEO, Infodash: “AI will not replace lawyers in the immediate future, but it will fundamentally reshape their roles. While AI excels at automating routine tasks (e.g. contract analysis, eDiscovery, and brief drafting), it lacks the human judgment, emotional intelligence, and ethical reasoning required for complex legal matters. Over the next 2-3 years, we will see AI shift legal work toward advisory and strategic functions, but full lawyer replacement remains unlikely. The firms that embrace AI as a complement rather than a competitor will be the ones that thrive in the evolving legal landscape.”
- Nathan Walter, CEO, Briefpoint: “There are some components of the job that need human-to-human connection – I don’t think a jury will ever warm up to an AI trial attorney in the same way I lose interest in a piece of media once I find out it’s made by AI. The parts that don’t need a human touch? Those will be gone.”
- Dorna Moini, CEO/Founder, Gavel: “No, AI will not replace lawyers. There’s a large gap in legal services that needs to be filled, and while AI can assist with some routine functions, it can’t bridge that gap in legal services on its own. Lawyers will continue to be vital in offering the nuanced support and guidance that many clients need. Instead of replacing lawyers, AI can serve as a tool to help them better serve not just underserved communities, but the middle class and digitally-inclined clients as well.”
- Colin Levy, Director of Legal, Malbek: “We do not know how our own brains work especially around self-awareness, so to somehow expect AI to do the same anytime soon is highly unlikely.”
- Gil Banyas. Co-Founder & COO, Chamelio: “AI won’t replace lawyers, but it will reduce the number needed as it automates routine legal work. While AI excels at tasks like document review, it can’t replicate lawyers’ judgment, strategic thinking, and emotional intelligence. The future lawyer will be more efficient and focused on high-value work, but firms will likely need fewer attorneys to handle the same workload.”
- Arunim Samat, CEO, TrueLaw: “We believe AI will create 10x lawyers—legal professionals who can accomplish 10 times more work in the same amount of time. While certain legal functions will inevitably be affected, this shift isn’t unique to the legal industry—it’s happening across every sector. To thrive in an AI-augmented world, professionals must reimagine their workflows and daily operations. The key is adaptability: those who embrace AI and rethink how they work will unlock unprecedented efficiency and value, while those who remain rigid and resistant to change will struggle to keep up in this evolving landscape.”
- Greg Siskind, Co-founder, Visalaw.ai: “No. But lawyers will lead legal teams that include paralegals, lawyers, and AI. With the rise of genAI, roles will evolve where a lot of the tasks performed by paralegals and lawyers will be performed by AI, and humans will increasingly play more of a ‘sherpa’ role managing the tech and personally guiding their clients through the legal process.”
- Charein Faraj, Legal Operations Manager, LexCheck Inc.: “No, AI won’t replace lawyers, but it will fundamentally change the practice of law. It can help struggling associates learn faster, adapt more quickly, and gain expertise in less time. AI will also reshape the business model of law firms—potentially leading to more hiring as firms take on an increased volume of work. Additionally, AI is creating new opportunities for attorneys in adjacent fields like legal operations and AI-driven legal tech, opening up career paths that didn’t exist before. In some areas of law, AI may reduce the need for as many attorneys by cutting down busy work, but overall, it’s more about transformation than replacement. Rather than making lawyers obsolete, AI is redefining how they work and where their skills are most valuable.”
- Mitchell Kossoris, Co-Founder and CEO, Deposely: “AI won’t replace lawyers anytime soon. Lawyers don’t simply recite law and design legal strategies. They provide nuanced judgment, empathy, and advocacy—qualities that are crucial in client relationships and that AI still struggles with. The human aspect of attorney-client relationships cannot be understated, and clients need a real person they can connect with to reassure them, especially in high-stakes matters.”
- Troy Doucet, Founder, AI.Law: “No. Lawyers will become managers of AI.”
- Chris Williams, Head of Strategic Partnerships & Community, Leya: “The quote, ‘Artificial Intelligence won’t replace lawyers, but lawyers using it will’ still stands true.”
- Jenna Earnshaw, Co-founder & COO, Wisedocs: “No, AI won’t replace lawyers—because the law isn’t just about processing information; it’s about judgment, strategy, and advocacy. AI can be a powerful tool for streamlining tasks like document review and legal research, but it can’t think critically, navigate ethical dilemmas, or argue a case in court. Plus, human oversight is essential to ensure fairness and catch biases in AI models. Rather than replacing lawyers, AI is helping them by handling tedious admin work, freeing up time for higher-level thinking and client advocacy. The future of law isn’t AI vs. lawyers—it’s AI empowering lawyers to work smarter and deliver better results.”
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As legal tech companies continue to improve their offerings, the legal profession may continue to undergo fundamental changes to the practice of law— reshaping workflows, redefining the billable hour, and transforming the role of lawyers in ways we are only just beginning to understand.