When AI Automates the Hard Skills, What Separates the Profitable Law Firms from the Replaced?
I hired the law firm for my business without asking about their rates.
And it says something about how law firms need to compete in today’s AI and automation-driven paradigm shift
Here’s Why:
I hired the law firm for my business without asking about their rates. And I always—though I guess not always—ask about rates. I already knew the two lawyers who co-founded the firm were competent. They came highly recommended. I knew I liked them enough to schedule the call to learn more about whether they could help me with IP and outside general counsel work. What sealed the deal for me was that they are a Certified B-Corporation. That spoke to my core values.
And it says something about how law firms need to compete in today’s AI and automation-driven paradigm shift. If you’re in any way tied to the practice of law, you know that the billable hour is breaking after decades of breaking its attorneys and the relationship with their clients. Clients who have been, in the words of Anastasia Boyko, a legal futurist, among other accolades, have been coming to you because they have to, not because they want to.
What happens when they don’t have to anymore? Or balk at your hourly rate because they question who or what is doing the work, to what degree of effectiveness and efficiency?
Law firms and other professional services firms, such as accounting, engineering, and financial advisory firms, are entering a world that has flipped the script. For years, they were rewarded and trained to value technical skills over people skills. Today, and more importantly tomorrow, the people skills are what will get that client to sign with you without asking about the rates because they want to work with you and see their values reflected in your firm.
It’s the people skills that will build trust, and nurture collaboration, communication, productive conflict, persuasion, empathy, innovation, and sound judgment. It’s the emotional intelligence to recognize how time and financial pressures, exhaustion, anxiety, sadness, fear, uncertainty, burnout, compassion fatigue, anger, and insecurity affect your ability to practice competently, present yourself as you intend, and accurately interpret others’ intentions. It’s the human in you that helps you lead.
This strategic self-awareness also helps you determine the values that shape your worldview and why you wanted to practice law in the first place. This is important for every professional, and especially critical for those running their own firms. Why does your firm exist? What contributions do you want to make through it?
Knowing that tells you how to manage your practice and guide investments in all things, including AI and automation tools. As well as the time you will supposedly save through AI. How much time varies. Thomson Reuters says its tool will save you 5 hours a week. If you don’t sit and wrestle with things like, “who am I outside of my work,” and give yourself permission to be outside of work—something that many lawyers struggle with—you will find more work to fill those 5 hours with.
Your values also become part of what differentiates you from the competition. Again, it’s what will get the clients to say yes without asking about your rates. Or at least, ensure that rates are not their only deciding factor.
There is ample discussion and growing data on the ROI of soft skills in professional services and law firms, which I won’t repeat here. Check out the links below for that.
What I will say is that your ability to build a career, a profitable firm, provide for yourself and your family, contribute to causes you care about, take the trips you want, buy the stuff you want, all of it depends on how you behave with other people. This has always been true. It’s just that now, you are feeling that truth hit harder than it did before.
If you are running your own law firm or at a partner level in a firm and want help strengthening your “human skills” and practicing value-based career or firm management, I would love to speak with you. Schedule a 15-minute conversation here to discuss what you most need in this moment and how we can reduce the fear, frustration, and uncertainty around these “interesting” times.
Further Reading:
· The Geek Review with Anastasia Boyko
· AI in Law Firms Can’t Take Away the Profession’s Human Elements, Bloomberg Law
· Kate Barton, Global CEO of Dentons, writing in Fortune
· JD Supra
· Sethi, Arleen Kaur, Emotional Intelligence in Legal Practice: A Pathway to Law Firm Sustainability and Transformation in the 21st Century (April 20, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5525002 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5525002