Most discussions about artificial intelligence in legal practice focus relentlessly on answers: which tasks to automate, how much time to save, which vendors to select. Firms should step back and ask better questions in order to visualize AI’s possibilities.
Legal organizations typically begin their AI journey with practical questions, from whether AI can review documents faster to how to choose the right vendor.
These are reasonable starting points, but they treat AI as an efficiency tool rather than a catalyst for reimagining legal work. The most transformative opportunities emerge when we challenge our fundamental assumptions about how legal work is conducted and what it could become.
Ask yourself the following questions to change the discussion around AI.
1. What if legal expertise isn’t just what lawyers know, but how they know it?
Legal practice develops a distinct cognitive process: spotting issues, analyzing precedent, and constructing arguments. What if technology could enhance this thinking rather than simply storing information?
Consider an appellate practice that creates an AI system helping attorneys visualize how precedent lines have evolved over time. This transforms brief-writing by revealing conceptual connections that traditional research misses entirely. Technology doesn’t replace analytical thinking. It extends it into new dimensions.
2. How might client service change if time constraints disappeared?
Much of legal service delivery is shaped by lawyer time scarcity. What if this constraint vanished for certain activities?
Imagine a corporate legal department using AI to analyze every contract the company signs, creating continuous feedback loops that transform their understanding of business relationships and risks. This isn’t just faster contract review. It’s a fundamentally different relationship with contractual information.
3. What knowledge could benefit from externalization?
A boutique firm specializing in technical regulation could develop an AI-enabled system to capture formal regulations and practical wisdom from experienced lawyers. New associates could tap into decades of experience from day one.
This doesn’t diminish experience’s value. It amplifies its organizational impact.
4. How might legal services be unbundled and reassembled?
Traditional delivery often bundles many activities together. What if technology allowed disaggregation and recombination in new ways?
A litigation boutique might offer modular services ranging from fully AI-assisted document review to human-only strategic consultation, allowing clients to choose appropriate machine and human involvement for different matter aspects. This creates fundamentally different client relationships.
5. What if legal judgment could be augmented rather than automated?
The binary framing of “AI will/won’t replace lawyers” misses a more interesting possibility: augmented legal judgment. What if technology enhanced judgment quality rather than substituted for it?
A privacy practice might develop AI that helps attorneys visualize compliance approach implications across multiple jurisdictions. The system wouldn’t make decisions but would allow lawyers to explore consequences in ways cognitively impossible without technological assistance.
Questions We Can’t Ignore
Beyond practical implementation, we need deeper questions about values: How we deploy AI will shape not just legal efficiency, but the profession’s role in society and its ability to develop future practitioners.
How do we ensure efficiency is beneficial for both providers and recipients of legal services? Automation often increases profit margins without improving access. Consider how AI’s benefits might extend beyond the bottom line to improve access to justice.
What happens to lawyer development if traditional junior work is automated? If document review and basic research are increasingly automated, think about how new lawyers develop judgment and what new developmental pathways must be created.
How do we prevent AI from amplifying existing legal system biases? AI systems learn from historical data reflecting systemic biases. Examine how to implement systems that mitigate rather than reinforce these biases.
What governance frameworks ensure AI serves our professional values? Core legal profession values—confidentiality, competence, independence—weren’t developed with AI in mind. How must our frameworks evolve to protect these values?
Creating Space for Curiosity
The most important question is: How do we create space in legal organizations for genuine curiosity about technological possibilities?
In a profession driven by precedent and billable hours, open-ended exploration can seem impossible. Yet innovative legal organizations cultivate curiosity through innovation labs, dedicated exploration time, and cultures rewarding thoughtful questions as much as definitive answers.
This institutional curiosity isn’t a luxury. It’s a competitive necessity.
As you consider AI’s role in your organization, resist jumping straight to answers. Begin with curiosity. Ask questions that challenge assumptions. Wonder about possibilities. Explore the edges of what’s known.
The legal profession has always evolved in response to social and technological change. What makes this moment unique isn’t just the technology, but the opportunity to reimagine legal practice from first principles.
The most interesting future won’t be created by those who adopt new tools, but by those who ask new questions. Join me in this exploration of what legal practice might become.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.
Author Information
Melissa Koch is a technology lawyer with over 25 years of experience advising tech and tech-enabled companies.
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