10 Trends & Signals Lawyers Should Be Watching In 2025
What Trends & Signals Are Impacting & Driving Legal Services In 2025?
As you know, it is well into 2025.
We want to share with you some things we are watching closely and believe you, as lawyers and legal professionals, should be watching too - for yourself as a lawyer, your clients, and the long-term benefit of your law firm and the legal profession.
We’ve tried to pitch these, as always, to be useful whether you’re a sole practitioner or part of a multi-disciplinary practice.
2025 is a year we believe is being and will continue to be marked by considerable change, led by AI in the legal industry.
Not Just AI Alone
We could have called this blog post just “AI trends in the Legal industry 2025” and left it there, because Generative AI is dominating the discourse in 2025. But we’ve stayed as holistic as possible on trends and signals that are shaping the future of law as well as the future of lawyering.
We believe that lawyers who look ahead of the game for their clients stay ahead of the game. It’s a cliché, but it matters more than ever. We have never used the word, disruption, as often as we have in 2025 before.
Lawyering in 2025 is not just about having the best legal technical skills nor for that matter the best AI agent.
The Need To Look At The Bigger Picture
We still believe it is about being able to see societal, cultural, business and technological changes and how they will impact legal practice, before others and especially before your clients.
We have to acknowledge however the pervasive impact of Generative AI on law firms and its role as a source of disruption in legal services. But we also have to remember that this technology is only an enabler.
There are many other forces shaping the future of lawyers.
The ever-present question of whether AI can replace lawyers must be seen in a much broader societal context than just a silo of artificial intelligence.
The Top Ten Future Focused Trends Lawyers Should Watch Out For
Economic stabilisation once the geopolitical issues temper.
The difficulty of leadership in law firms as they balance global, national, organisational and societal issues, along with generational differences and the need for changing business and pricing models.
Mental health, resilience and wellbeing.
Migration, both in terms of optimal numbers and the right types of skillsets.
The ongoing tug of war between working from home and returning to the office.
Climate change, energy transition, ESG and DEI - the balancing act between legacy and future focused approaches.
Advances in AI and the automation of routine tasks, the use of AI-powered legal advisory for predictive and preventative lawyering, the challenges of AI-powered legal research, the contamination of the common law by fake cases, the need for AI verification and auditing, AI legal ethics and AI compliance.
Generational differences and silos, and how these can be reconciled.
Continuous learning and training, particularly reskilling and upskilling relating to Generative AI.
Cybersecurity and deepfakes particularly due to AI.
