What happens when a centuries-old profession meets a wave of digital disruption? For many legal firms, the answer is still unfolding, caught between tradition and transformation, risk and opportunity.
The pressure of losing market share has become an increasing reality as digital transformation becomes more important to success. Widespread geopolitical uncertainty and rapid technological advancements are resulting in significant shifts in the legal market across the UK.
Thomas Reuters Institute, State of the UK Legal Market 2025, reports that GCs at UK-based companies are evolving their position to drive productivity and act as strategic partners to the C-suite, not just a cost centre or back-office function. at UK-based companies are evolving their position to drive productivity and act as strategic partners to the C-suite, not just a cost centre or back-office function. There is an increasing appetite to bring legal work in house and focus on value is rippling across the industry, with a sharper lens on speed and billing models.
With that in mind, it’s clear that AI and tech have become a bigger part of the legal conversation. While we’re still in the relatively early stages, there’s a real sense of optimism about how they’ll help drive efficiency and add value across the industry. Still, the reality is that legal firms can be tough to transform — partly because they handle high-value, sensitive data, but also due to deeply embedded processes, strict regulatory requirements and a culture that’s often cautious about change.
With AI no longer a distant concept but a core part of client expectations, talent retention and legal service delivery, global adoption is clearly accelerating, rising from 34% to 54% year-on-year, according to ACC Benchmarking data.
Yet for many firms, the journey toward AI integration comes with structural and operational challenges. Centralised policy frameworks to govern the ethical and compliant use of AI are often still in development, particularly when it comes to handling sensitive client data. At the same time, much of the data within firms remains unstructured and siloed across legacy systems, making it difficult to prepare for AI tools that rely on clean, tagged, and accessible datasets. Cloud adoption adds another layer of complexity; firms must balance the need for agility and innovation with the imperative to protect client confidentiality and meet jurisdictional requirements.
Choosing the right cloud strategy is critical, and investment in the right foundations will be a determinator for long-term resilience. While public cloud can offer robust, multi-layered security that can often surpass on-premises solutions, legal firms need to approach cloud with diligence. Research by Vanson Bourne reveals that over half of UK IT decision-makers plan to move away from US-based cloud providers, driven by concerns over data sovereignty. Transitioning to a sovereign cloud ensures data is locally governed, securely protected, and fully compliant. When the stakes are high and the options complex, partnering with an MSP can give firms the support they need to make secure decisions.
From talent retention, shifting pricing models, to operational strategy, AI is here and it’s changing the parameters for efficiency, value and trust. To reap the rewards, firms need to invest in infrastructure that can deliver long-term resilience. Without it, they risk not only missing a critical opportunity for innovation but also compromising client data and falling behind their clients, their competitors, and their people.
