The question is not whether artificial intelligence (AI) will affect lawyers. It’s already reshaping how legal work is researched, drafted, reviewed and delivered.
The real question is what kind of lawyer will matter most in an AI-enabled world.
In this insight, Antonio Alberto Vela Peón, legal services partner at Baker Tilly (Mexico), shares his views on how the lawyer of the future will be less a processor of legal information and more of a strategic adviser, ethical gatekeeper and interpreter of complexity.
AI can accelerate legal research, review large volumes of documentation, support contract analysis and produce first drafts at speed. It cannot understand client context. It cannot weigh commercial risk, reputational exposure, human judgement and legal nuance in the way clients need when the stakes are high.
Automation is changing the economics of law
For decades, legal service models have been built around time: hours spent researching, reviewing, drafting and refining. AI challenges that model directly.
Tasks that once required teams of junior lawyers or long manual processes can now be completed faster and at greater scale. Automated legal research, document review, contract analysis and draft generation are already reshaping how work is staffed, priced and valued.
That does not make junior lawyers obsolete. It does, however, change what early-career lawyers must learn and how firms develop talent.
If technology handles more of the routine information processing, lawyers need to move faster towards higher-value skills: issue spotting, judgement, client communication, regulatory interpretation and strategic problem-solving.
The new value is judgement
AI is powerful because it can process information at speed. It is risky for the same reason.
Generative tools can produce fluent, plausible and confident outputs that are incomplete, misleading or wrong. In legal practice, that matters.
A fabricated citation, an overlooked authority, an inaccurate summary or an insufficiently tested argument can damage a case, a transaction and a client relationship.
This is why professional responsibility does not disappear when AI is used; it becomes more important.
The American Bar Association has made clear that lawyers using generative AI must consider their duties of competence, confidentiality, communication and reasonable fees. The Bar Council has also emphasised that barristers remain ultimately responsible for their work and must use AI with accuracy, control and integrity.
That points to a sharper definition of legal value. Clients will not pay a premium for work that technology can produce quickly. They will pay for confidence. They will pay for lawyers who can ask the right questions, challenge the output, identify what has been missed and advise on what the law means in a specific commercial, regulatory or human context.
Ethics becomes a competitive advantage
The rise of AI also raises hard questions about confidentiality, data protection and governance.
Legal professionals handle sensitive information by default. Entering client material into unsuitable tools can create risks around privacy, privilege and control of data. Even where tools appear secure, lawyers need clear policies on what can be used, when, by whom and for what purpose.
In this environment, ethical competence is part of the service proposition. Firms and legal teams that can demonstrate responsible AI governance, including human supervision, data safeguards, verification standards and transparent client communication, will be better positioned to build trust.
Legal education must catch up
The transformation cannot stop at practice. It has to start in legal education.
Law schools have traditionally focused on doctrine, case law, legal reasoning and professional method. Those foundations remain essential. But they are no longer enough.
The next generation of lawyers will need technological literacy alongside legal expertise. They must understand what AI tools can do, where they fail, how bias and hallucinations arise, and how professional duties apply when technology is part of the workflow. They will also need to strengthen the capabilities that are hardest to automate: critical thinking, ethical judgement, creativity, persuasion and strategic communication.
The firms that adapt first will lead
The legal profession should not frame AI as a threat to be resisted or a shortcut to be adopted without discipline. Both positions miss the point.
AI represents a shift in capability.
Used well, it can improve efficiency, widen access, reduce friction and free lawyers to focus on the work that most needs human judgement. Used badly, it can amplify errors, weaken accountability and erode trust.
Firms and legal teams that redesign work around that reality will benefit most. They will not simply bolt AI onto old processes. They will rethink training, pricing, supervision, quality control and client communication. They will be clear about where technology adds speed and where human expertise remains indispensable.
The future lawyer is more human, not less
Human value – judgement, trust and ethical behaviour – will matter more, not less, in a technology saturated world.
Our latest global research report, The mid-market maze, found that seven in ten executives believe organisations that can demonstrate their human value will succeed in the next decade.
AI will take on more of the mechanical work of finding, sorting and producing legal information. That makes the lawyer’s distinctly human contribution more visible: judgement, responsibility, interpretation and trust.
The lawyers who thrive will be those who combine deep legal knowledge with technological confidence and ethical discipline. They will know when to use AI, when to challenge it and when to rely on experience that no system can replicate. In a profession built on judgement, the future will not belong to lawyers who compete with machines. It will belong to lawyers who use machines to become better advisers.
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