Poll: AI will have the most influence on development of law firms in the coming years

Lawyers say artificial intelligence (AI) is the development that will most influence their law firms in the coming years, dwarfing the impact of digitalisation, globalisation and other factors.

Nearly seven out of every 10 lawyers in the ST/Statista Best Law Firms survey cited AI, followed by the shortage of skilled talent for hire, chosen by 48 per cent, as the most consequential developments for law firms in the coming years.

About 34 per cent cited digitalisation, and less than two out of 10 named globalisation as the most influential factors for law firms in the future.

This is even as most firms are turning to digital technology to transform their operations, promote efficiency and create new value. Globalisation has also increased cross-border interconnectivity and facilitated integration, changing and enhancing businesses.

The question of which developments will have the greatest influence was posed as part of the ST/Statista Best Law Firms 2026 survey and drew some 359 responses. 

The survey showed a clear shift in the legal industry’s priorities, with AI and talent surfacing as the dominant issues, potentially upending legal workflows and client service models in the process.

The two issues are related, as the shortage of tech-savvy legal professionals could hasten the use of AI, triggering an upgrade in skill sets of existing professional staff to offset the manpower gap. 

There are more than 6,000 lawyers in Singapore.

Commenting on the survey outcomes, Mr Ian Ernst Chai, a former lawyer, said: “Having worked with AI since 2018 – first as a lawyer steeped in legal technology, and now as a software engineer – I’ve witnessed its performance increase exponentially, while costs have plummeted.”

This has created a momentum whereby lawyers, facing mounting cost pressures and clients who are increasingly AI-savvy, must harness these efficiency gains just to remain competitive, he said.

“While many clients remain concerned about confidentiality, privacy and cyber security, sophisticated AI use is increasingly becoming a qualifying requirement for clients. The 67 per cent of lawyers who rated AI as the most influential development recognise this new baseline requirement.”

An Oxford University and Columbia Law graduate, Mr Chai is now the full-stack engineer co-founder of Elefant, an AI-forward legal platform that offers unified search, document drafting, and bespoke consulting services.

He added: “Staying competitive is just the starting point. The real opportunity lies in developing deep AI fluency: understanding not just how to use these tools and commercial offerings, but how to orchestrate AI agents that work independently to your exact specifications and standards.”

Firms, for instance, may begin by seeking out far more efficient document review, and find themselves reaping the numerous opportunities that present themselves beyond that. “This is where firms can leap ahead,” he said. 

“Mastering this frontier is difficult, but mastery promises huge competitive rewards. On the other hand, remaining behind the frontier is an existential risk,” he said.

Senior Counsel Cavinder Bull, chief executive of Drew & Napier, said: “Gen AI has moved from pilots to production in many firms. It is used primarily for research, document review, drafting assistance and knowledge retrieval.

“The perception of the profound impact of Gen AI is driven by productivity gains, client expectations for speed and value, and rapid improvements in enterprise-grade tools that respect confidentiality and compliance.”

Mr Bull noted today’s AI deployments are still largely “assistive”, and not autonomous. “The quality, auditability, secure data governance, and integration with other systems for matter management and knowledge management remain genuine constraints,” he said.

“In this environment, our approach is to train lawyers to harness AI, redesign processes to maximise its benefits, and – perhaps most importantly – foster a culture of responsibility and a heightened awareness that lawyers must remain in control of judgment, strategy and client care.” 

Ms Angeline Poon, writing in the September 2025 issue of the Law Society’s Law Gazette, argues that “AI is no longer a distant disruption. It is already reshaping how legal services are delivered, how clients evaluate value and how younger lawyers expect to work”.

“The biggest risk is not about adopting the wrong AI tool, but becoming gradually irrelevant, slower, less competitive and increasingly out of sync with how clients and markets are evolving.”

Senior Counsel Abraham Vergis, managing director of Providence Law Asia, points out the “legal industry’s recognition of AI as a transformative force is well justified, given its potential to reshape workflows and service delivery models fundamentally”.

“That said, while the momentum is undeniable and the interest is strong, the practical integration of AI across firms remains uneven,” he noted. “Many are still in the early stages of adoption, and there is a natural lag between technological capability and widespread implementation. 

“The agency and agentive roles promised by AI are visible in pilot projects and certain practice areas, but the reality on the ground is that most firms are cautiously navigating issues of data privacy, ethical use, and the need for human oversight.”

Mr Vergis noted: “The conversation around AI is rightly front and centre, but the industry will need to continue investing in both technology and people to realise its full potential.” 

On Sept 1, the Ministry of Law (MinLaw) launched a month-long public consultation exercise to seek feedback from legal professionals and the public on a proposed Guide for Using Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Legal Sector. The draft guide was written in consultation with key industry stakeholders, including the Singapore Academy of Law, Law Society of Singapore, and Singapore Corporate Counsel Association, and incorporated insights from law practices that have successfully implemented Gen AI.

These moves are part of MinLaw’s efforts to support the transformation and digitalisation of the legal industry, particularly with regard to the use of Gen AI.

MinLaw said then that the rapidly evolving nature of Gen AI and technology means that law firms need to keep themselves constantly updated to stay relevant.

“At the same time, the increasing use of Gen AI has raised concerns about client confidentiality and data security, as well as the accuracy of the output. Additionally, potential biases in AI models could also affect legal analysis and decision-making,” it added. 

Mr Dharmendra Yadav, principal counsel at Lex Dharma, said: “There is an AI arms race playing out in the legal profession. Technology or knowledge management budgets are being increasingly deployed for such purposes. What used to take me half a day to do now takes me less than an hour!

“Like how legal deliverables were once driven by lawyers with better legal databases, legal outcomes are quickly becoming a function of who has the better AI tool.”

He said AI tools now tend to be agentive – creating original content such as text, images, video, audio or software code in response to a user’s prompt or request.

But he expects AI to soon become agentic, autonomous systems that can operate independently as “agents” to achieve goals through decision-making, planning and task execution with minimal human oversight. 

“While I have no doubt that there is going to be some consolidation in the industry in time to come, I am hopeful that AI, whether agentive or agentic, will facilitate the work of the lawyer and raise productivity levels of the legal profession collectively,” he added.