For too long, practices have exploited their scale to offer authentically a wide range of of services. They had the people and technology to ensure clients could funnel all their legal requirements through to the one practice. This relegates smaller practices to at best, niche services or, at worst, “ crumbs off the table.”
This is no longer so.
While Garfield AI has broken the mould to recover debts of less than £10,000, Agentic AI is beginning to encroach on the end-to-end processes by automating compliance checking, client onboarding, document drafting and contract reviewing. Principals will no longer be forced to balance client enquiries against paralegal availability, such as sickness, exam study or holiday.
Efficiency is no longer dependent on attendance.
Too often, smaller legal firms have failed to capitalise on the broader needs of the clients due to a lack of bandwidth. Agentic AI provides more resources without the weight of National Insurance increases or demands for career progression.
This means that the human team are liberated to focus on the client relationship and not the processes.
The Magic Circle firms need to revamp their approach or risk being sidelined by the fleet-of-foot smaller firms – unencumbered as they are by layers of people.
Agentic AI has levelled the pitch. The firms that thrive in the next 5 years will not. Necessarily be the biggest – they will be the boldest.
So …what is holding you back?
I help leaders respond to this new business paradigm. Feel free to DM me with your thoughts!
