Here is my recent Daily Record column. My past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.
****
The legal profession falls behind on AI while other industries move ahead
As artificial intelligence (AI) tools gain rapid traction across professional services, a clear pattern is emerging: law firms are dragging their feet. While other industries are integrating AI into daily workflows and experiencing significant benefits, recent data shows that our profession remains the outlier: cautious, skeptical, and slow to adapt.
The 2025 Intapp Technology Perceptions Report highlights this divide with data that serves as a wake-up call. Eight hundred twenty people were surveyed across four professions: legal, accounting, consulting, and finance. One hundred seventy legal professionals weighed in, representing 21% of all respondents.
From the survey data, a clear pattern emerged: the legal segment had the lowest adoption levels and was the most cautious in its approach to AI. For example, slightly more than half (55%) of legal respondents were using AI at work. In comparison, 89% of survey respondents in finance were using it, followed by 73% in accounting, and 68% in consulting.
The data also showed that twenty-five percent of legal professionals reported that their firms had no plans to adopt AI, which was twice the rate reported by accountants, with even lower rates among consulting and finance firms. Similarly, law firms lagged behind in AI adoption as well. Only 39% were already using AI, compared to 57% in accounting, 54% in consulting, and 71% in finance.
The legal profession’s failure to adopt AI is unfortunate, considering the positive outcomes experienced by survey respondents overall. Across industries, more than half of professionals report that their firms are using AI successfully to boost productivity, innovation, and creativity. Many are reallocating time saved with AI to focus on higher-level client work (42%) and strategic planning (33%). The time savings reported were tangible: 38% of professionals say AI saves them 3–5 hours per week, 18% save 6–10 hours, and 8% save more than 10 hours. Notably, 82% of professionals say the quality of AI-generated work is at least as good as their own.
The data shows that these other professions are reaping the benefits of AI. Overall, 38% of professionals surveyed reported saving 3–5 hours per week, 18% save 6–10 hours, and 8% save more than 10 hours. They’re using that newfound time to, among other things, improve their work-life balance (48%), focus on high-level client work (42%), engage in strategic planning (33%), build client relationships (28%), increase billable hours (24%), and pursue new business opportunities (23%).
In other words, other industries are experiencing noticeable AI adoption gains, while the legal profession lags behind. The impact of its continued reticence will only increase exponentially as the technology improves and is adopted across the business world. In the long run, the legal profession’s overly cautious approach to AI will prove unnecessarily costly and detrimental to client service and business goals.
Generally speaking, there are many reasons offered for this slower rate of AI adoption. Some claim the technology is too new or too flawed to trust, but those concerns are a red herring. For years now, AI has been embedded in the tools regularly used by legal professionals, including word processing software. Think predictive text, Grammarly, and document automation.
As AI has improved, the biggest change has been visibility and scale, not function. Whether the AI tools and output are simple or complex, intelligent follow-up has always been required. Errors aren’t a reason to reject the tools; they’re a reason to use them responsibly.
What the legal profession claims is caution is really complacency. While lawyers debate hypotheticals, peers in finance, consulting, and accounting are saving hours, focusing on strategy, and increasing efficiency. Being overly cautious won’t cut it anymore.
Failing to engage with AI now isn’t prudent; it’s shortsighted, and it’s costing firms more than they realize. The message is clear: AI isn’t a distant threat or a passing trend—it’s a present advantage. Our profession can either catch up or risk falling irreparably behind.
Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney, author, journalist, and Principal Legal Insight Strategist at MyCase, CASEpeer, Docketwise, and LawPay, practice management and payment processing tools for lawyers (AffiniPay companies). She is the nationally-recognized author of “Cloud Computing for Lawyers” (2012) and co-authors “Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier” (2010), both published by the American Bar Association. She also co-authors “Criminal Law in New York,” a Thomson Reuters treatise. She writes regular columns for Above the Law, ABA Journal, and The Daily Record, has authored hundreds of articles for other publications, and regularly speaks at conferences regarding the intersection of law and emerging technologies. She is an ABA Legal Rebel, and is listed on the Fastcase 50 and ABA LTRC Women in Legal Tech. She can be contacted at niki.black@mycase.com.