It turns out it was not. And I am grateful I found that out before adding more student loans to the pile I already had.
While AI entered the chat before this year, I would argue 2026 has been the year of AI. Every day, it seems there is a new client announcement, or another law firm becoming the latest customer of a legal AI company. And rightfully so. There is so much opportunity in the legal space, which is one reason I have never left since having my own epiphany back in 2004.
Why AI feels familiar
I have taken some time to reflect on the industry lately. The rise of AI feels eerily similar to when eDiscovery was the hot topic, and firms were asking familiar questions: should we outsource this work, or bring the technology in house? Better yet: If we do buy it, how do we recoup the cost of ownership? Can we bill clients for it?
Fast forward to 2026, and firms are having similar internal discussions about AI, but it seems to be at a much faster pace. When a firm’s main billing model is human billable hours, it is natural that people are discussing how to bill for AI use. I am not going down that rabbit hole here because people far smarter than me are already working through that question, and the answer is unfolding before our eyes.
But I do want to make a distinction that I feel needs to be highlighted.
Individual productivity is not the same as firm-wide optimization
A large volume of legal technology platforms are centered around optimizing individual productivity. The same can be said about AI.
Whether it is an attorney uploading thousands of contracts and asking an AI engine to extract key items or summarize risk, or using AI to draft the first version of an agreement, the goal is often to help one person complete one piece of work faster.
The lawyer may still own the responsibility for the final product, but AI helps get the first draft completed much quicker. There are countless other uses for AI that I do not need to lay out here, and many of them are valid and highly efficient uses changing the landscape of legal service delivery.
But nearly all use cases that I have seen or heard are centered around individual productivity and not optimizing the law firm itself.
There are so many moving parts in a large law firm that increasing efficiency should be a no-brainer. But I am shocked by how many firms are investing heavily in AI automation without optimizing firm operations first. Many will say they have. In my experience, most have not. And many have not come to that realization yet.
Optimizing operations before the next big shift
This argument may sound odd coming from an account manager at a software development company focused on productivity, but bear with me.
Let’s think about BigHand’s Workflow Management solution for a minute. On the surface, time saved is one of the first ways firm leaders think the technology will change their firm. And they are not wrong. But optimizing the workflow of one task does not automatically improve the performance of the entire firm.
Yes, when you factor in hundreds of support team members and hundreds of tasks a week, the numbers tell a compelling story. But the bigger opportunity is improving the firm as a whole, so it can scale and adapt to shifts like AI.
Put simply, law firms need to optimize operations before the point of decision. The firms best positioned for what comes next will be the ones that can use real-time data to make better decisions before those decisions become urgent.
Two fictional firms. Two very different approaches.
I am going to tell you a story about two law firms with completely different structures and priorities. Both are successful BigLaw firms. But which one is more innovative? And which one is better positioned to adapt to future opportunity?
Law Firm A: innovating the practice of law
Law Firm A is a 1,000-attorney global law firm. They consider themselves an early adopter of AI and made a splash when they signed an enterprise agreement with a top-tier legal AI company. Their associates use AI to draft first iterations of documents, carry out legal research, create chronologies, and more. They are saving time, partners are happy, and the firm is starting to develop ROI metrics around AI use.
The firm has a large innovation team and a top-tier brand, but its attrition rate is above 25%. Its development team built a homegrown solution using Excel spreadsheets and Power BI reporting to show which associates met their forecast the week before. Forecast emails go out to understand what associates expect in the coming weeks.
The firm uses an in-house ticketing system to track support staff tasks and see who is working on what. Partners still have the legal secretaries they have had since they made partner. There is a large attorney resource center, and a word processing team that lawyers email when a troublesome document needs to get out the door.
The firm has opened three new offices in the past year and plans to enter a new market in 2027, most likely through a strategic acquisition. It subscribes to top-tier accounting products, can generate reports on the fly, and has raised rates by 10% for the coming year. By all measures, this firm is crushing it.
Law Firm B: innovating the business of law
Law Firm B is a 550-attorney firm. It has worked hard to optimize its support staff by pooling legal secretaries after the executive team realized the average age of its legal assistants was nearing retirement age, and that a lot of institutional knowledge could leave the firm in the near future.
Attorneys email tasks into a central process, and whoever has bandwidth completes the task while the attorney focuses on work of greater value to the firm. When a partner needs an associate on a new matter, they apply a few filters in their resourcing technology and quickly see who has availability, the right skills, and the desire to handle that type of work, regardless of office location.
When a troublesome document comes in, support teams use a shared inbox that automatically routes the request into a word processing workflow. Attorneys can track the status from their mobile devices. Associates are asked to highlight their skills, career goals, and areas of focus they would like to gain experience in, so that information is visible in firm systems and forms part of annual review conversations.
The firm has business intelligence software that gives it the financial intelligence and visibility it needs for decisions that affect cash flow, revenue, and profit. That same engine provides the reporting needed to realize it does not need to replace a top legal assistant who is retiring at the end of the year, because her work can be shifted to others with capacity.
By all measures, the left hand knows what the right hand is doing, and visibility is a strength. The firm is now working to incorporate AI into its transformed processes to see where it can supplement the team and maximize value.
Which firm is really ready for what comes next?
Both fictional firms are successful. Firm A is innovating the practice of law through AI adoption, market expansion, and attorney productivity. It is probably gaining stronger visibility today because of its AI strategy, growth, and market presence.
Firm B, however, has the greater long-term adaptability advantage because it has already shown a willingness to rethink structures, workflows, and staffing approaches. Firm B is innovating the business of law through workflow design, staffing intelligence, resource optimization, and operational scalability.
In short, Firm A is innovating the practice of law around individuals, while Firm B is innovating the business of law by fixing its operations first.
In theory, both firms would make great BigHand customers, and we would likely already be working with each of them across parts of our product suite. But Firm B is closer to BigHand’s ideal client profile. It may not be the firm making the biggest headlines, but it is the one making tough choices early. It will continue to reap the benefits because it focused on visibility, operational structure, and reviewing data before decisions were made.
Technology amplifies the system it enters
Technology amplifies whatever system it enters. A well-designed operation gets exponentially better. A poorly designed one simply gets expensive faster.
I am grateful to work at BigHand, where our technology helps law firms make decisions based on real-time data and gives our clients the scalability to adapt to opportunity. Right now, that opportunity is AI. But what comes next?
Something tells me BigHand customers will be ready.
