Article on The next phase of legal AI: Re...

Ninety-two percent of legal professionals now use at least one AI tool in their daily workflow, according to the 2026 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer Survey Report. The bigger shift isn't speed. It's how leading firms are redesigning service delivery end to end - a topic at the center of a recent ELM Solutions webinar.

From task automation to workflow redesign

Many firms began with familiar use cases: research, drafting, summarization, and document review. Those applications still deliver measurable gains in speed and consistency. But firms are increasingly asking whether the underlying workflow still makes sense in an AI-enabled environment. The webinar brought together law firm professionals from legal operations, practice, pricing, and AI transformation. One panelist said the real opportunity lies in "redesigning workflows themselves: determining what can be automated, what should be standardized, where human judgment has the greatest impact, and how legal work should ultimately be delivered to clients." For practicing attorneys, the shift is tangible. Firms are thinking less about individual tasks and more about end-to-end service delivery. For legal professionals building these skills, training resources such as AI for Legal cover the range of AI applications in legal work.

Beyond cost savings

When clients raise questions about AI, the conversation often starts with efficiency. They want to know whether work can be done faster, whether costs will decrease, and whether invoices should be lower. These are reasonable questions - legal departments still face pressure to manage spend and improve predictability. But the webinar's panelists argued that focusing exclusively on cost reduction overlooks AI's larger potential. AI can improve consistency, identify risks sooner, strengthen analysis, and uncover patterns across large datasets. Those benefits may prove more valuable than simple reductions in hours worked. Paralegals, who handle much of the document review and legal research involved in these workflows, can develop AI skills through dedicated training such as AI for Paralegals.

Pricing and partnership

AI is exposing weaknesses in how legal services are priced. Historically, value has been measured through inputs: hours worked, staffing levels, time invested. Yet clients focus on outcomes: reducing risk, resolving disputes, protecting business interests, and getting strategic guidance. One panelist drew an analogy to GPS navigation. The tool reduces the effort of finding a route, but the value isn't in the navigation - it's in arriving at the right destination, faster and with fewer wrong turns. Legal AI works the same way. The compressed effort is a means, not the measure. Legal departments and law firms are still learning how to have productive conversations about AI. The opportunities emerge when both sides work together to rethink service delivery: what to automate, what to standardize, and what outcomes matter most to the business. Panelists encouraged legal departments to identify strategic law firm partners, openly discuss AI adoption, and work collaboratively to define success.

Why this matters for legal professionals

The professionals who benefit most from AI won't be the ones who simply work faster. They'll be the ones who redesign how legal work gets done, measure value by outcomes rather than hours, and partner with clients to define what success looks like. That's a different skill set than traditional legal practice - and it's increasingly the one that separates leaders from the rest.