Running a successful law firm has always involved balancing competing priorities from delivering excellent legal expertise and maintaining client relationships to protecting margins, managing risk, driving revenue and developing good talent within your firm. Now, increasingly, law firms must also decide where technology and AI can make a meaningful difference and who they choose to partner with to help them deliver on their long-term goals.
According to the firms we surveyed in our Annual Trends Report 2026; AI adoption and integration is now the number one business priority for legal organisations, followed by operational efficiency and reducing costs. Yet the challenges sitting on the other side of that ambition include skills gaps, limited visibility into back-office operations, poor integration between platforms and inefficient or manual workflows.
Improving efficiency and productivity isn't just about asking fee earners to do more, faster. Sustainable improvement depends on everything around the legal work too: how easily a client is onboarded, whether information moves with the matter and how quickly, how reliably time becomes revenue, how effectively risk is managed, whether people have the right tools and skills, and whether leadership can see enough of the business to make confident decisions.
When we speak to our customers, many of the challenges that they face comes down to the same issue again and again: friction. Whether it’s between different processes, systems or teams, friction slows down work and leaves staff feeling frustrated at every level.
