Legal splits cleanly: paper versus people.

First-pass document review, standard contract drafting, and research summaries now come back in minutes at the firms that have deployed legal AI, and bar associations have responded with supervision rules rather than bans. That choice matters: regulated professions that adapt integrate AI faster than unregulated ones, because the rules remove the ambiguity.

The economics land hardest on the work that was already commoditized: review floors, routine drafting, research memos. They land lightest on courtrooms, negotiations, and counsel delivered under malpractice liability. In between, a new practice area is forming around AI governance itself, and the professionals who know the rules are first in line for it.