Because the yr winds down, the authorized career is flooded with retrospectives: the rising AI adoption fee by solos and smalls (now round 70%), ways in which AI is leveling the playing field between massive and small corporations (together with on the hallucination front the place massive corporations and solos are equal offenders) and the acquainted commentary noting the shift from chat-based tools to agentic systems. A lot of this commentary is correct — nevertheless it’s additionally repetitive and boring. Fairly than regurgitate what most attorneys already know or may readily study from AI, I’ll take a distinct method and look at 5 distinct enterprise fashions that supply new alternatives for solo and small-firm attorneys within the AI age.
Let’s take a step again. In line with Wikipedia, a enterprise mannequin describes how a enterprise group creates, delivers, and captures worth. For many years, regulation agency enterprise fashions have been downright boring, largely primarily based on promoting time in billable increments. That’s modified to a point lately with flat charges and regulation subscription fashions like Mathew Kerbis’s The Subscription Attorney, however these approaches — together with six new law business models that I imagined years in the past — by no means gained any actual traction.
In AI period, all of that will change. And actually, some would argue that it has to alter since with AI chopping down on the time required for authorized duties, billable income is sure to say no. However AI may also energy new enterprise fashions, or revive conventional ones. Beneath are 5 regulation agency enterprise fashions for the AI age that may assist solo and small regulation corporations diversify their choices.
1. Artisanal Authorized: “Good Outdated-Original Regulation,” Reimagined
The primary mannequin could appear counterintuitive in an AI-driven period: Artisanal Authorized. That is the deliberate embrace of high-touch, bespoke authorized companies grounded in judgment, technique, and human perception — augmented, however not changed, by AI.
On this mannequin, AI operates largely behind the scenes. It helps analysis, drafting, and challenge recognizing, permitting the lawyer to give attention to what purchasers worth most: interpretation, advocacy, and belief. The lawyer’s model is constructed not on velocity or scale, however on craftsmanship. Consider appellate advocacy, regulatory counseling, advanced negotiations, and area of interest advisory practices the place outcomes hinge on expertise somewhat than quantity.
As AI commoditizes routine authorized outputs, the perceived worth of deep experience and individualized counsel will improve, not lower. Shoppers going through high-stakes issues will search attorneys who can clarify why a technique works, not simply produce a doc. Artisanal Authorized practices will possible cost premium charges, emphasize popularity and referrals, and stay comparatively small by design.
2. Human-AI Doc Evaluation: The dott.authorized Mannequin
On the reverse finish of the spectrum lies Human-AI Doc Evaluation, exemplified by platforms akin to dott.legal. This mannequin addresses a persistent actuality: whereas AI is exceptionally good at sorting, clustering, and flagging paperwork, purchasers and courts nonetheless need human accountability. As a part of this mannequin, purchasers come to an legal professional with an AI-generated doc, and the legal professional steps as much as validate and certify outcomes.
This mannequin requires effectivity and material familiarity. Dott.authorized is priced at $199 for a doc or demand letter — which doesn’t appear workable for something longer than 4 or 5 pages. And if the doc is an actual clunker, the revisions could be extra concerned. AI can’t resolve the issue as a result of the mannequin guarantees legal professional assessment. Nonetheless at a better value level at scale and with caveats as to the dimensions of the doc, this mannequin could have legs.
3. AI-Enabled Contract Lawyer Providers (Shared Entry)
A 3rd class of AI-enabled authorized companies adapts the normal contract-lawyer mannequin to the economics of recent authorized expertise. As the price of superior AI analysis and discovery instruments continues to rise — typically $1,000 per 30 days or extra — many solos and small corporations can’t justify sustaining subscriptions for infrequent use. What they can justify is paying for the output of these instruments when a matter requires it.
Underneath this mannequin, an legal professional makes the upfront funding in premium AI-enhanced platforms — akin to complete Westlaw merchandise, AI analysis instruments, or enterprise discovery methods — and provides the advantage of these instruments to different attorneys on a contract foundation. The service is offered not as software program entry, however as lawyer-supervised work product, preserving moral compliance {and professional} accountability.
For instance, a lawyer with a full Westlaw AI suite may present per-diem or project-based companies akin to 50-state surveys, multijurisdictional analysis memoranda, issue-spotting analyses, or first-draft briefs, full with supporting authorities and analysis trails. The hiring agency receives high-quality, defensible work product with out incurring ongoing expertise prices, whereas the offering lawyer monetizes each experience and infrastructure.
The identical mannequin applies to discovery and litigation help. A lawyer with entry to a complicated discovery platform can handle doc assessment, privilege evaluation, and challenge tagging for different corporations, utilizing AI to speed up assessment whereas sustaining human oversight. Fairly than every agency buying and mastering advanced discovery software program, discrete litigation capabilities are outsourced to a specialist who already has the instruments and methods in place.
This shared-access method transforms costly AI platforms into revenue-generating property and creates a brand new class of supercharged contract authorized companies — quicker, extra scalable, and accessible to corporations that don’t want full-time possession of superior authorized expertise.
4. Subsequent-Era Regulation Practices Capturing Older Lawyer Data
One of the crucial underappreciated alternatives within the AI age is the seize and reuse of institutional authorized information, significantly from senior and retiring attorneys. Many years of experience — deal with regulators, negotiate industry-specific contracts, or handle recurring disputes — typically walks out the door when a lawyer retires.
On this mannequin, regulation practices would purchase not a regulation observe however senior attorneys’ information which might be encoded into AI methods: curated doc libraries, annotated precedents, choice bushes, and coaching datasets. These methods are then used to coach junior attorneys, help client-facing work, and even generate new income streams.
The observe turns into not only a supplier of authorized companies, however a information steward. This mannequin is particularly highly effective in area of interest regulatory, industry-specific, or regional practices the place tacit information issues greater than printed regulation.
It additionally provides a compelling succession technique. Fairly than promoting a e book of enterprise, older attorneys will help construct sturdy methods that protect their experience whereas lowering dependence on their private availability.
5. AI-Ahead Regulation Agency Offshoots
One other rising mannequin is the creation of AI-forward offshoots inside or alongside conventional regulation corporations. These should not full-service corporations, however specialised entities targeted on AI-enabled companies: compliance audits, inner investigations help, contract analytics, discovery administration, or regulatory monitoring.
The offshoot construction issues. By separating these companies from the core agency, attorneys acquire flexibility in pricing, staffing, and expertise adoption with out disrupting legacy billing fashions. These entities could make use of technologists, undertaking managers, and non-lawyer specialists alongside attorneys.
Shoppers profit from readability: they know they’re shopping for a process-driven, technology-enabled service somewhat than bespoke authorized recommendation. Companies profit from diversification and innovation with out existential threat to the principle observe.
Over time, some offshoots could develop into standalone companies — and even outpace their guardian corporations in income.
The AI age doesn’t level towards a single future for regulation observe or for the wholesale extinction of attorneys. As an alternative, it opens a number of viable paths — every with completely different tradeoffs in scale, earnings, identification, and influence. Attorneys who focus solely on AI instruments with out fascinated with the underlying enterprise mannequin threat lacking the bigger alternative: rethinking how authorized worth is created and delivered.
Carolyn Elefant is without doubt one of the nation’s most acknowledged advocates for solo and small agency attorneys. She based MyShingle.com in 2002, the longest-running weblog for solo practitioners, the place she has printed 1000’s of articles, sources, and guides on beginning, working, and rising impartial regulation practices. She is the creator of Solo by Selection, extensively considered the definitive handbook for launching and sustaining a regulation observe, and has spoken at numerous bar occasions and authorized conferences on expertise, innovation, and regulatory reform that impacts solos and smalls. Elefant additionally develops sensible instruments just like the AI Teach-In to assist small corporations undertake AI and she or he constantly champions reforms to degree the taking part in discipline for impartial attorneys. Alongside this work, she runs the Regulation Workplaces of Carolyn Elefant, a nationwide power and regulatory observe that handles selective advanced, high-stakes issues.
