AI LEADERS
Growing maturity
More firms modelling commercial and operational futures, say leaders
Over a third now pushing on pricing change, half planning for new skill needs
In spite of so many questions swirling, almost half (47%) of leaders are confident that their progress evaluating and implementing any form of genAI to date is competitive with ‘peer’ firms in their part of the market. The majority are now tracking the number of active users and their most frequent users, although it appears fewer are able to distinguish along a line of user effectiveness. As of July 2026, two-fifths believe 60-80% of all the firm’s people are using a firm-approved genAI solution at least once a week, and almost a fifth estimate the proportion is even higher. Most are also tracking the rate of adoption within different teams or practices, but very few have the data to compare performance with adoption rates at other law firms.
62%
of firm AI Leaders say they have a 'buy and build' model for AI investment, an increase from two-fifths at the start of 2026
As cost concerns mount in some quarters, they are significantly more likely than at the top of the year to have a hybrid buy/build strategy (60%), although the vast majority have either bought or are clear that they will be buying something — a third now indicate they’re only in the business of buying off-the-shelf. Very few are pursuing a more bespoke arrangement with a provider or currently looking to a legal ‘plug-in’ option (such as Anthropic’s new Claude for Legal).
At the same time, all firms to respond now have an AI acceptable-use policy in operation, with small increases in the already widespread number of approved tool lists and role-based training initiatives that direct individuals towards their optimum use, exploiting the top opportunities to transform their own spheres of work.
A steady 70% are also embarked on pilots of genAI within workflows, but actually documenting those workflows is one of the biggest areas of recent movement — over a third now have this underway, up from a fifth in December 2025. There is a similarly large increase in the number of firms that are modelling pricing and resourcing requirements for more genAI-augmented workloads, according to leaders — over twice as many say their firms are now doing this (38%) — as well as skill-mix planning for a workforce optimised for that future (54%).
Morgan at DAC Beachcroft says: “Client expectations are shifting from exploration to expectation. Firms need to be in that conversation, or too quickly and too easily the conversation becomes about reductions in price, rather than focusing on the value of output. It isn't unusual to have multiple pricing models designed to meet client requirements and reflect the complexity and risk associated with the work. There will always be opportunities to evolve how legal services are priced, but the value of the expert judgement, experience and insight legal advisers bring will remain central, regardless of the model used.”