AI is beginning to reshape how legal work gets done, and the traditional billable hour is feeling the strain. With AI taking over drafting and other routine tasks, law firms are being forced to rethink how they train junior lawyers and how they charge for their time. Jorge Bestard, head of EMEA at Harvey, warns that a faster draft does not automatically produce a more competent lawyer, so firms must deliberately replace the learning opportunities that routine work once provided.
A&O Shearman is responding by emphasizing qualities like curiosity and entrepreneurship in its hiring, and by building career paths in legal engineering, product, and AI delivery that barely existed a few years ago. Francesca Bennetts, the firm's head of legal talent, stresses that developing exceptional lawyers remains essential because they become the partners and experts of the future.
At the same time, the nature of legal expertise is shifting. According to Soomro, judgment will become disproportionately valuable as lawyers spend more time checking and challenging AI output and interpreting its implications for clients. The future, he argues, may belong less to the lawyer who knows one narrow area deeply and more to the lawyer who can connect multiple areas to solve complex client problems. The source does not present conflicting views, but it does highlight different firm strategies for adapting to the same pressure.{