November 2025

Your legal team needs clarity more than AI

By David Curtain

As 2025 begins to draw to a close, I’m hearing a lot of CEOs ask: “How can our legal teams use AI to get ahead?” 

This push to adopt AI comes from a desire to maintain the perceived pace of competitors. It’s classic ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ pressure. But AI alone won’t resolve the deeper challenges legal teams face. 

Most organisations haven’t yet defined what they need most from Legal, clarified roles and responsibilities of Legal vs clients, or figured out how Legal fits strategically within the broader business. These aren’t problems software can fix. If you bolt AI onto a messy operation, you don’t get a clean, efficient operation. You get an amplified mess. Rocket fuel on a tinderbox.

Fundamentals still trump tech

The fundamentals that mattered five years ago, and even ten years ago, still matter today. A legal team that is strategically misaligned with its business stakeholders won’t suddenly become aligned because it has an AI tool. Poor data governance won’t fix itself when you plug in automation. A fractured relationship between Legal and Marketing won’t be fixed by machine learning.

First, solve the right problems

These are people problems. They’re organisational problems, and they require careful work to (a) identify the underlying causes of problems; and (b) identify and implement workable solutions to address those specific causes.

Starting AI or automation projects without robust data governance and clear processes tends to fail and increase risk. That’s a liability waiting to happen.

The boring work comes first

The biggest issues facing legal teams right now aren’t new. Cost pressures are relentless. Headcount is insufficient. Teams are burnt out. But the teams that are thriving are focusing on the unglamorous work first. Clarifying their priorities and how they manage them. Getting honest about capacity and resources. Building great working relationships with the business. Taking regular temperature checks about what’s working and what’s causing friction. Then they bring in tools to scale what’s working, rather than fool themselves into believing an app removes the need to discharge important leadership and management responsibilities.

Fix basics before chasing AI

Hearing so many GCs grapple with expectations from their CEO that they ‘start using AI’ (despite most of those CEOs having no idea about the relevance of AI to their legal teams’ work), my advice is to start with the basics. Have real conversations with your team about what you’re actually trying to achieve. Address the basics and ensure you have a solid foundation. Identify your key challenges and opportunities. Develop a roadmap that identifies what innovation looks like in your specific circumstances. Then build a business case for any additional resources you need.  

Getting help to strengthen foundations

For most teams, that means getting external help from someone who has the bandwidth and expertise to help you get your house in order without adding to your team’s workload.

The right support can help you free up your existing lawyers to focus on strategic work. They plug resource gaps. They help you implement the fundamentals properly. And then, once you’ve got your foundations covered, you can think about bringing in the AI.

As we head into the new year, my message to leaders is to be realistic about what’s achievable. Stop waiting for the technology to rescue you. Face up to the complex problems that need solving. Get the right people, the right advice, and the right support. Then talk to us about what’s next.