The chair of one of America’s most prominent law firms has delivered a frank assessment of how artificial intelligence is reshaping the legal profession from the ground up.
Ira Coleman, chair of McDermott Will & Schulte, told Law.com that AI will not replace associates outright, but it will replace those who fail to embrace and master the technology.
The warning reflects a growing consensus across the legal industry that junior lawyers can no longer afford to treat AI tools as optional extras in their professional development.
Coleman made clear that early proficiency in AI will become a defining factor in how top firms identify and reward rising talent within their associate ranks.
“Someone who is good at it [AI usage] early and shows promise to accelerate. Great firms will recognize this and reward it,” Coleman said, laying out his vision for how the profession must evolve.
His remarks signal that law firms are beginning to formalise expectations around AI competency in ways that could directly influence career trajectories and promotion decisions for junior lawyers.
The implications extend beyond individual careers, touching on fundamental questions about how legal work is priced, billed, and valued by major corporate clients.
Coleman argued that routine tasks capable of being completed by tools such as ChatGPT should no longer be charged to clients, placing pressure on associates to demonstrate higher-order thinking.
“The expectation is if it is something ChatGPT or something else can produce that is low value for the clients, then the expectation is we shouldn’t be billing them for it. So, we all have to level up our game,” Coleman said.
He continued, setting out precisely what clients should now expect from the lawyers they instruct: “You must be adding judgment, angle, and know how things affect a business or how it helps them win.”
The challenge facing Biglaw firms is ensuring that entire associate classes, across all levels of seniority, are building genuine AI proficiency rather than surface-level familiarity with the tools.
Firms that fail to address this skills gap risk falling behind competitors who are actively developing and incentivising AI capability throughout their associate pipelines.
For junior lawyers entering the profession in 2026, the message from firm leadership is increasingly consistent: technical legal knowledge alone is no longer sufficient to build a successful career at the highest levels of practice.