Key takeaways
- From chatbot to agentic: redefine what “using AI” means. Most legal professionals are using AI at the chatbot level: asking questions, drafting emails, running basic research. The panelists aligned on 2026 as the year legal moves beyond task-level efficiency to reimagining how services are delivered altogether. John LaBarre described a near-term future where lawyers orchestrate multiple agents in parallel and track how many they keep active at once as a productivity metric.
- Governance isn’t just a risk question, it’s a leadership one. Only 49% of respondents have a formal AI error policy, yet 96% say they’d use AI more if accountability were clearer. Mary O’Carroll put it plainly: working with AI is like working with a new, unsupervised teammate. You’re still accountable for the output. Irene Liu reinforced that a cross-functional approach (security, privacy, IT, compliance, HR, and the CEO) is the only model that works.
- The execution layer is getting commoditized and judgment is the differentiator. As AI handles more of the doing, what rises to the top is the so what: advising on risk, reading the room, understanding the business. Mary O’Carroll noted that the execution/judgment bundle once delivered by outside counsel is now being unbundled by AI. The great lawyer of 2031 brings legal judgment, empathy, business context, and ethical reasoning, and knows how to orchestrate agents to do the work around them.
- Workloads are up and so is legal’s seat at the table. 88% of respondents reported increased workloads since adopting AI, and 96% say their organization expects more from legal than it did two years ago. Legal is now the function the rest of the organization turns to for guidance on how to use AI well, not just govern it. 99% have been asked by other functions about their approach.
- Legal engineering is the fastest-growing talent gap. The bottleneck isn’t tools. It’s people who can sit at the intersection of legal process knowledge and technology workflow design. Legal engineering roles are growing rapidly at companies like Harvey and LegalEng, and demand far exceeds supply. For legal professionals wondering where new opportunities are, this is one of the clearest answers.
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Ironclad is not a law firm, and this post does not constitute or contain legal advice. To evaluate the accuracy, sufficiency, or reliability of the ideas and guidance reflected here, or the applicability of these materials to your business, you should consult with a licensed attorney. Use of and access to any of the resources contained within Ironclad’s site do not create an attorney-client relationship between the user and Ironclad.
