Legal Trends 2025 / 2026 - What Our Lawyer Polling Reveals
Insights From Simple Polling Across The Legal Profession
What Our Polling Says About Legal Trends This Year
We ran a series of simple polls across lawyers throughout the year, with responses ranging up to 200 participants per poll.
We just asked lawyers some simple questions about things we believe might matter to them.
A few very clear signals came through and we thought we would take the opportunity to present them as an end of year wrap up and summary.
Work-Life Balance Is Now The Priority
Work-life balance topped most polls we did that included it as an option.
This included as a factor for:
job satisfaction
career development priorities
Lawyers are actively pursuing work/life balance in various ways regarding how they work.
AI Is Here But Human Judgment Still Matters
Lawyers continue to expect technology such as AI, to have a very big impact on the profession.
At the same time, many made in clear in polling that they:
don’t trust the quality of AI in law
worry about blind reliance
feel uneasy using it without proper training
Soft Skills Are A Real Advantage Over AI
Despite the focus on technology and AI, soft skills such as
relationship-building still matters
strategic thinking is critical
face-to-face networking still works best
Law remains a people business. AI is the leverage for much of its legal work, but the lawyer with hopefully their enhanced soft skills remains front and centre.
The Big Takeaway
Lawyers want better lives, smarter work, and more attuned technology that supports their professionalism in what they recognise as a new system of working as professionals. This we believe will be a key theme in 2026.
Paul Ippolito is Principal of Ippolito Advisory. Paul is available for media enquiries, speaking and consulting. You can contact him here.
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