Bench & Bar September/October 2025

PRESIDENT'S PAGE

A GUIDE FOR ATTORNEYS THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE REVOLUTION:

BY TODD V. MCMURTRY KBA PRESIDENT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE BOTTOM LINE: Attorneys using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools save an average of 240 hours annu ally while delivering services at lower costs. Firms that fail to adopt AI risk losing competitive ground to those embracing this technology revolution. KEY FINDINGS FROM THOMPSON REUTERS' FUTURE OF PROFESSIONALS REPORT 2025: • AI will have the "biggest impact" on legal profession over next 5 years • Larger firms are outpacing smaller firms in AI adoption

As I stated in my July president’s page, “Attorneys who do not adopt AI will lose the economic competition with attorneys who embrace the coming AI revolution.” The purpose of this page is to help you start down the path to AI literacy so you can win the coming economic competition. It is an imperative you should not ignore. Here is why: Thompson Reuters recently pub lished the Future of Professionals Report 2025 . The report predicts that AI will have the “biggest impact” on the legal profession over the next five years and suggests that AI “laggards” face serious risks in the competition with firms and attorneys who adopt AI. The report surveyed attorneys and found that on average those using AI tools expect to save 240 hours per year when completing their work. The net effect of this type of savings is that the AI literate firms will accomplish more at a lower cost than will an attorney not using AI. The problem is that not everyone is adopting AI at the same rate, which

will put laggard firms at an economic disadvantage. The report states that larger law firms are ahead of mid size law firms, which in turn outpace smaller firms. The bigger the firm, the more it can invest in AI capabili ties. In my view, smaller firms should not be intimidated, as they can use available and reasonably priced AI tools to immediately turbocharge their practice. This report, however, misses a strategic point: AI will level competition by pro viding smaller firms with more bandwidth to compete in labor intensive tasks. Firms that innovate and adopt AI early will be able to gain a strategic advantage over competitors by doing more at a lower cost. AI has the potential to level the playing field and reconfigure the legal business model. Now smaller firms will be able to use AI to review documents, draft dis covery, summarize depositions and draft legal memoranda, all of which will pro vide time savings. In my view, mid-size and smaller firms will be able to afford AI

• AI "laggards" face serious competitive disadvantages

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september/october 2025