The Pressures Impacting Your Solo Legal Practice

AI is getting better and better.

The real question for solo lawyers is whether they are getting better too, in literacy, competency, value, pricing, and competitive advantage.

The Pressures Impacting Your Solo Practice

Whether you like it or not, one of the realities impacting your solo practice is the growing divide in AI adoption.

There are the deniers.

There are the evangelists.

Somewhere between them is the reality that AI is getting better and better.

You can see that in the iterations of the various LLM public models that are coming out frequently.

Occasionally, these are showstoppers in the way these models are able to leverage AI to a much greater level than ever before.

There have also been enough subtle announcements lately to suggest that AI is moving more rapidly towards artificial general intelligence than many expected.

So there is no question that AI is getting better and better.

The trick, of course, is whether we are getting better and better as well.

AI Is Getting Better. Are We?

As AI improves, we need to ask whether we are improving too.

That means improving our literacy, competency, testing, experimenting, and ability to adapt.

It also means working out what should be best left to AI and what we are really good at.

Moving on from that is the obvious issue of adding more value than AI.

Unless you do the former, I do not think you can work out the latter.

What is it that you are much better at doing as a lawyer than AI?

How do you start to leverage that?

How do you even begin to market it, quarantine it, brand it, sell it, convert it to clients, and get paid for it?

I think that is a big issue.

In fact, I think it is a huge issue. Unfortunately, it is almost the elephant in the room.

It is fine to say lawyers need to add more value than AI.

But in the same breath, we are saying that we may be heading towards AGI faster than we ever have before.

Once we are talking about AGI, ASI, quantum, and all sorts of other super technology, we are talking about global issues, international governmental issues, and issues that impact much more than lawyers.

So, on a day-to-day basis, I try to be a little optimistic.

Let’s just work on the things we can work on.

We can get better and better, just as AI is getting better and better.

We should have a growth mindset.

We need to define what our best value is, and let go of the things AI can obviously do better, cheaper, and faster.

What Is Your Competitive Advantage?

Ultimately, what we are talking about is your competitive advantage.

What are you known for?

What is it that you can do better than most legal consumers, your clients, your competitors down the road, and even AI?

As I said I think that is a huge issue.

It is important to set some time aside and start dealing with those issues now, even if the answers are not yet clear.

You need to prepare for those issues and start to execute on them, because first mover advantage on some of this stuff is very, very important.

That is just realistic in light of the continued elevation of AI routining the task.

Big Tech Is Going After The Task

There is no question that big tech is going after the task.

The routine and the task are what big tech is finally going after.

We are at that Uber moment.

For ages, we have been talking about innovation and disruption. A lot of it was overblown.

Yes, of course, there was innovation but not at the scale we are talking about in the last few years, and certainly not at the scale we have seen in the last six to twelve months which is more disruptive than ever.

You can see a huge movement towards disruption in the legal services sector, and it has caught lots and lots of people off guard.

Governments throughout the world, tech companies, educators, the judiciary, the legal profession, regulators, and others have all had to look at these issues very quickly in a very short period of time.

At the same time AI keeps getting better as it goes along.

It is a very fast-moving thing.

Responding, regulating, educating, adjudicating, protecting and governing in that environment is a phenomenally difficult task.

Pricing Routine Work

Then there is the issue of pricing for routine work.

As I said before, adding more value than AI is a discussion being had in all law firms at the moment.

There is also more pressure than ever on the billable hour because consumers and clients are well aware of what AI can do.

That is definitely something that needs to be thought about.

AI Fatigue Is Real

AI fatigue is also real.

People are throwing their hands up and saying it is just too much.

Too much information.

Too fast.

I totally understand that, because even as someone in the field, I struggle to keep up.

My views change rapidly.

I have been researching emerging technology, and particularly AI, for about ten years. I have been advising clients for about eight years and educating law students and lawyers for about six or seven.

Even so, I am shocked at the rate of change.

There is fatigue that goes with that.

People say we just can’t keep up. It’s too much information.

Who do I trust? What should I do? One person says one thing. Another something totally different, Which tool do I use? How? Then it changes again.

There is also a creeping sense of futility.

Some people say that if AI gets as good as it is supposed to get, none of us will have a job at the end of the day.

To be quite honest, I think that is more than a little overblown.

However the concern is understandable.

My Views And Focus Have Changed

When I first started talking about the future of law years ago, it was a very multidisciplinary and multi-dimensional thing.

If I look at it in its entirety today, it is mostly AI-driven.

I think that speaks volumes.

I certainly did not expect big tech to be as interested in legal services as it is today.

That speaks volumes about where we are and where disruption is heading.

Throw Your Hands Up? No.

Throw your hands up?

No.

Stay active.

Have a growth mindset.

Watch this space.

Work on the things you can work on.

Get better as AI gets better.

Define your value.

Understand what AI can do better, cheaper, and faster.

Then work out what you can do better than AI, better than your competitors, and better than your clients can do for themselves.

That is where the work is.

And that is where the opportunity is.

We work directly with solicitors, barristers, and consultant lawyers on the decisions that shape an independent practice - structure, positioning, pricing, systems, capacity, financial control, AI use, and strategic direction.

This is practical, experience-based advisory work for lawyers who want a stronger, better-run practice and clearer judgment about what needs to change next.

You can work with us through a Strategy Session or a Solo Law Firm Tune-Up.

We also offer practical tools, guides and webinars for lawyers who want to get on top of these issues properly.

Details are on www.paulippolito.com.au