Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant talking point in the United States legal market. It sits inside research platforms, powers document review, and is beginning to shape how new lawyers are trained. With that change has come a familiar fear that AI will gut junior roles, commoditise legal work, and erode professional standards. The emerging reality points in the opposite direction. Used thoughtfully, AI is an opportunity rather than a curse for the US legal profession. It is shifting the mix of tasks, expanding what lawyers can do for clients, and creating new roles for people who can combine legal judgment with technological fluency. How US firms are actually using AI Surveys of American lawyers show that use of AI tools is still uneven, but growth is very fast. Adoption of generative AI nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024, and almost half of large US firms now report using AI based tools in some part of their practice. While the headlines focus on disruption, the day to day reality clusters around several concrete use cases. Research and analysis Major US providers have embedded generative AI into traditional research platforms. Lawyers can now ask natural language questions and receive draft answers with citations, then drill down into the underlying cases and statutes. Most legal professionals surveyed say that AI could be applied to their work and expect it to become central to their workflow within a few years. In practice this means faster routes to a first answer, not the replacement of deep doctrinal analysis. Document review and discovery Machine learning assisted review is already mainstream in complex US litigation. Newer generative tools can summarise large evidence sets, identify themes, and suggest likely relevance, which reduces the sheer volume of manual review while leaving final calls on relevance and privilege with human lawyers. Reports of large matters show that this combination can cut timelines significantly and improve consistency across large teams. Contracts and transactional support On the transactional side, firms and corporate legal departments use AI to generate first draft agreements, compare third party paper against playbooks, extract key data from portfolios of contracts, and produce short summaries for business leaders. When standard language is handled more quickly, lawyers can spend more time on negotiation strategy, bespoke drafting, and explaining trade offs to clients. Operations and client service Beyond pure legal work, AI supports intake, knowledge management, billing narratives, financial analysis, and internal reporting. Surveys of US lawyers link better use of technology with improved client service, especially through faster response times and greater transparency about scope and cost. AI is becoming part of the plumbing of firms, not just a shiny new app. These are not marginal experiments. They map closely onto the activities that US firms already bill for and the operational functions that support those activities. Why AI is an opportunity rather than a curse The sense that AI will hollow out the profession rests on an assumption that it will simply replace lawyers. The evidence from the US market suggests something different. AI is changing which tasks lawyers spend time on, and it is creating new work that did not exist before. 1. AI changes the task mix more than it removes lawyers Economic and survey data point to AI as a way to remove drudgery rather than human judgment. The most time consuming parts of legal work often involve repetitive research, standard drafting, and pattern based review of documents. These are precisely the areas where generative models and other AI tools perform best. At the same time, the core responsibilities of lawyers remain firmly human. Only a lawyer can sign pleadings, appear in court, or advise a client on what level of risk is acceptable in a given deal. Professional rules on competence and supervision require lawyers to review, verify, and take responsibility for AI generated material. US bar guidance is clear that AI does not dilute those duties. In practice that means AI acts as a force multiplier for lawyers rather than a substitute. 2. Misuse leads to better standards rather than a ban There have already been publicised incidents where lawyers or public offices submitted AI generated material without proper checking, leading to wrong citations or inaccurate statements. These cases are often cited as proof that AI is dangerous. A more accurate reading is that they show what happens when existing duties of competence and supervision are ignored. The response from courts and regulators has not been to ban AI, but to require disclosure, insist on verification of citations, and remind lawyers that professional obligations apply equally to technology. That is exactly what happened when email, electronic filing, and electronic discovery were introduced. After an early period of trial and error, clear rules emerged and the tools became part of disciplined practice. AI is following the same path. 3. AI is creating new roles and career paths inside firms If AI were simply replacing human labor, one would expect leading firms to shrink their investment in people. The opposite is happening. Large firms are hiring legal engineers, knowledge professionals, data scientists, and AI specialists whose job is to design and maintain AI enabled workflows. Cleary Gottlieb’s acquisition of Springbok AI is a good example. By bringing a team of engineers and data scientists in house, the firm has signalled that bespoke AI tools and data driven services are now part of its core strategy, not just something bought off the shelf. Other firms are growing internal innovation teams and technology subsidiaries that build client facing products and internal automation tools. These moves support, rather than displace, traditional legal roles. Partners and associates who can work effectively with technologists are better positioned to lead complex mandates and design new offerings for clients. 4. US legal education is pivoting toward AI readiness Law schools are not treating AI as a threat to the profession. They are building it into the training of new lawyers. Across the United States there are now many courses and programs that cover AI and law, from doctrinal subjects on regulation of AI to skills oriented classes that teach students how to use AI tools responsibly in research and drafting. Some law schools have made AI training a standard part of first year orientation or legal writing courses. Others offer certificates or specialist tracks focused on technology and innovation in legal practice. A small but growing number of schools even invite applicants to discuss how they use AI in their studies or applications. This educational shift suggests that the next generation of US lawyers will treat AI literacy as part of basic professional competence, much as familiarity with electronic research or document management is now taken for granted. 5. AI expands the value lawyers can offer clients From a client perspective, the most important question is not whether AI is fashionable but whether it improves outcomes. Surveys of general counsel and law firm leaders indicate that they see AI as a way to deliver faster, more cost effective service, and also as a catalyst for new kinds of work. When routine tasks are handled more efficiently, lawyers can spend more time on strategy, negotiation, and risk counselling. Firms can price work more creatively, take on matters that would have been uneconomic in the past, and provide richer analytic insight into litigation risk or contract portfolios. Corporate legal departments are already investing in AI for contract management, compliance, and investigations, which in turn creates demand for outside counsel who can match or exceed those capabilities. Smaller firms and solo practitioners also stand to gain. Cloud based AI tools give them research and drafting capabilities that used to require large support staff, helping to narrow the gap between small and large organisations and improve access to legal services in under served communities. Putting AI to work responsibly Seeing AI as an opportunity does not mean ignoring its risks. Confidentiality, privilege, data security, bias, and due process are real concerns. But these are exactly the kinds of problems that lawyers are trained to manage. Firms that are making AI a competitive advantage in the US tend to follow the same broad playbook. They build governance. They adopt clear policies on which tools may be used, what data can be uploaded, how outputs must be checked, and when disclosure to clients or courts is required. They align those policies with existing rules on competence, confidentiality, and supervision. They invest in people. They provide structured training for lawyers at all levels on how AI works, what its limits are, and how to use it in a way that is consistent with professional obligations. They also hire or promote people who can bridge law and technology, and they give those people real authority. They communicate with clients. They are ready to explain how AI is used on matters, what benefits it brings, and what safeguards are in place. For many sophisticated clients this transparency is a positive differentiator and a reason to trust the firm with complex, data intensive work. AI is now embedded in the US legal profession. The data, the behaviour of leading firms, and the direction of legal education all point to the same conclusion. AI is not replacing lawyers, but it is reshaping how they work and what clients expect. It is removing some of the least rewarding tasks, opening up space for more strategic and creative work, and creating new roles for people who can combine legal expertise with technological understanding. For lawyers and firms that engage with these tools critically and ethically, AI is not a curse bearing down on the profession. It is a powerful opportunity to redesign legal work in a way that delivers better outcomes for clients, more interesting careers for practitioners, and a more resilient profession overall. Selected sources American Bar Association, 2024 Artificial Intelligence TechReport, April 2025. LawNext, report on the 2024 ABA Legal Technology Survey and growth in AI adoption from 11 percent to 30 percent of lawyers, March 2025. Minnesota State Bar Association summary of the 2024 ABA Legal Technology Survey on law firm AI usage by size, April 2025. Maryland State Bar Association American Bar Association, Technology and Training TechReport, focusing on technology training for lawyers, April 2025. ABA related commentary on the 2024 Legal Technology Survey, emphasising that AI is reshaping rather than replacing legal work. Lawyers Mutual of NC Thomson Reuters, 2025 Generative AI in Professional Services Report and executive summary for legal professionals, April and May 2025. Thomson Reuters Institute blog, “Generative AI for legal professionals: top use cases,” May 2025. Thomson Reuters Legal American Bar Association, “The Legal Industry Report 2025,” summarising trends in personal use of generative AI by legal professionals. American Bar Association Cleary Gottlieb press release and related coverage on the acquisition of Springbok AI, March 2025. Latham and Watkins news release on its AI Academy and related materials on lawyer development, October 2024 and later updates. Financial Times coverage of law firms recruiting data scientists and building in house AI capability, including Cleary Gottlieb and Simmons and Simmons, 2025. Reuters analysis of AI related risks for legal professionals and the need for governance and training in law firms, July 2025.