AI is the business-model shock law firms need

It’s easier to change the law than the firms that practice it, an old industry saying goes. Teleport a lawyer from the 1970s to a big law firm today and the work looks basically the same, except with better pay (shockingly at the high end) and computers. Young lawyers still toil over documents, billing their time in six-minute increments. The money funnels up, and then out at the end of the year to pay partners, and the whole thing starts over.Law firms for decades have run like Marxist collectives, and about as efficiently. They don’t invest for the future, because historically there was little to invest in (there’s not much capex in the contract-review world) and no outside pressure (US rules prevent private equity from getting into the business). Antiquated, if noble, feelings of profes