One evening not long ago, my daughter was outside with a telescope, determined to find the Horsehead Nebula.
She had a printed star map, a well-aligned tripod, and all the enthusiasm in the world. But after ten minutes of twisting knobs and squinting through lenses, she looked up at me and said, “I think it’s broken. I can’t find the future.”
I smiled. “Neither can anyone else.”
We laughed, but the metaphor stuck with me. In law, business, and especially legal leadership in the age of AI, we’re all trying to peer into a hazy, shifting future. And we keep asking the same question: What happens to our work now that AI is here?
Here’s what I’ve learned: the future won’t show up in a single, dramatic burst. It’ll sneak in—quietly, iteratively, changing how we spend our time, where we create value, and how we build trust.
AI Sorts. Legal Leaders Steer
Let’s skip the panic and get practical.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs in legal services are still growing—just more slowly. Why? Because automation isn’t replacing expertise. It’s trimming the fat: repetitive review, redundant drafting, tasks that once filled up hours but rarely built relationships.
So no, AI isn’t your replacement. But it is your reminder. A reminder to shift away from execution and toward the parts of lawyering that matter most: insight, judgment, negotiation, and leadership.
The legal professionals I admire most aren’t asking, What do we lose to AI? They’re asking, What can we finally let go of?
Legal Leadership in the Age of AI Means Leading Beyond Automation
AI excels at what’s structured and predictable—summarizing terms, flagging anomalies, surfacing data patterns. These are helpful tools. But they’re not the job.
The job is knowing what those patterns mean. It’s knowing when a term that looks “market” still doesn’t feel right. It’s knowing how to explain a clause not just to another lawyer, but to a skeptical CFO or a nervous customer.
AI can show you the landscape. But you’re still the one who decides which path to take.
Legal Leadership in the Age of AI Demands Data-Driven Trust
Here’s the part that gets missed in the AI conversation: trust doesn’t just come from compliance. It comes from clarity.
One of the biggest friction points I see in contracting isn’t clause length. It’s misalignment. The other side can’t tell if your language is fair—or just familiar to you.
That’s where benchmarking changes the game.
By referencing how thousands of real-world contracts handle the same issues, legal teams can ground their positions in data. Not anecdotes. Not internal precedent. Actual, observable patterns in the market.
When you show that 74% of your peers handle AI indemnity the same way, you don’t just speed up review—you reduce doubt. And in fast-moving deals, that matters more than any clause library ever will.
In the Age of AI, the Bigger Risk to Legal Leadership Is Inaction
While everyone’s watching for the big disruption, something quieter is unfolding: a steady drift toward inefficiency in teams that don’t adapt.
Manual reviews that could be automated. Risk flagged too late. Roles that haven’t evolved.
We’re not talking about dramatic implosions. We’re talking about steady friction—missed revenue, delayed closings, a legal function perceived as slow instead of strategic.
And here’s the irony: the same tools that cause the anxiety—AI, automation, contract analytics—are the tools that remove the friction. Not to replace people, but to return time and focus to the work that actually builds trust.
A Telescope Moment: Embracing Legal Leadership in the Age of AI
Eventually, my daughter found Saturn.
“It’s small,” she whispered. That surprised her.
And that’s how this transition feels for many legal professionals. You spend months looking for a seismic shift, and when the future finally comes into view, it doesn’t look massive. It looks subtle. Manageable. But meaningful.
That’s what AI is offering right now: a small, quiet shift toward something better. If we let it.
What’s Worth Protecting
Here’s what I believe:
- AI will make our tools faster—but not our thinking better. That’s still on us.
- The most future-ready legal teams aren’t waiting for standards—they’re creating readiness.
- And trust? It’s still built the old-fashioned way: through clarity, consistency, and being able to explain not just what you do, but why you do it.
AI doesn’t build trust. Legal leaders do. Then they scale it—with systems, tools, and insight.
So as you navigate your own telescope moment, don’t look for the big reveal. Look for the small, steady changes in how you lead, where you focus, and how you turn confidence into clarity.
That’s the future. And it’s already here.
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At OlgaMack.com, shares bold insights, hard-earned lessons, and forward-thinking strategies to help in-house legal professionals thrive. As a visionary in-house legal technology leader, strategist, innovator, and coach, Olga is redefining what it means to lead with purpose, and how Focus as a Legal Advantage can shape the future of the profession.
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