Corporate legal departments are pushing their law firms to take the lead on artificial intelligence, yet they are sending contradictory signals about what that leadership should actually involve.
Law firms are actively seeking clear direction from their clients on AI adoption, but the response they are receiving is largely silence rather than meaningful guidance.
With no open dialogue taking place between the two sides, each has quietly begun developing its own separate vision for how AI should reshape legal services.
This disconnect is creating a growing divide in the legal industry at precisely the moment when coordination between clients and firms is most critical.
The billable hour, long the dominant pricing model in legal services, is now under serious pressure as AI tools dramatically accelerate the time required to complete routine legal tasks.
If a task that once took ten hours now takes one, the traditional model of billing by the hour becomes increasingly difficult to justify or sustain.
Law firms face a structural dilemma: embracing AI improves efficiency and client outcomes, but it simultaneously erodes the revenue model that has underpinned the profession for decades.
The concern is not simply economic disruption but also that the legal industry may be repeating a familiar mistake by allowing technology to outpace the governance frameworks meant to manage it.
Maui Gevero of PERSUIT has taken a detailed look at this dynamic, examining how both law firms and corporate legal departments are navigating these competing pressures.
The core tension, as Gevero’s analysis highlights, is that neither side is yet willing to initiate the direct, transparent conversation needed to resolve the uncertainty around AI-driven legal work.
Without that conversation, firms risk building AI capabilities that do not align with what clients actually want, while clients risk falling behind firms that are moving ahead regardless.
The legal sector has historically been slow to adapt to technological change, and the current moment demands a more proactive and collaborative response from both sides.
How law firms price their services in an AI-driven environment is likely to become one of the defining commercial questions of the next several years.