I keep hearing rumblings about AI pricing. So far most vendors seem content on charging on a subscription basis. Under that model you can input as much as you want at no increased cost. But a lot of the providers are losing money. And at some point they will have to turn a profit. To do that they may turn to a consumption based model. With that model, the more you search and the more tokens you use, the higher the cost. Sort of like the billable hour ironically.  

And it will beg for an ability to undertake a cost benefit analysis. So when Net “we arent rock stars” Documents came up with a tool to determine how to measure how increased content could save costs, I was interested. It’s a step towards undertaking the kind of analysis that may be needed in the future. Here are my thoughts for Above the Law. 

There have been several surveys and reports of late that suggest law firms are spending a lot of money on AI but they haven’t yet figured out how use to benefit their clients. Or themselves.

The consulting firm Harbor recently came out with their own report. It’s a little short on statistics and methodology but the conclusions seem simialr to that of others. As I’ve talked about before, I think that the law firms’ failure in this regard grows out of some systemic issues inherant in law firms. Here’s my post for Above the Law where I discuss the findings and the issues.

So next week starts the annual ILTACON. It’s one of the biggest legal tech shows. Maybe the biggest. And like everything over the top it’s a love hate relationship. To paraphrase a famous authort “Until you go to ILTACON and behold it with your own eyes, you ain’t never been nowhere and you ain’t seen nothing.”

The 2026 version starts next week in NashVegas. It’s four days of nonstop sessions, sales pitches, demos and of course a few parties thrown in. 

Here’s my preview and what I love. And hate. But I’ll be there trying to keep up and letting you know what I see and hear.

For some time, I have been concerned about the amount of AI slop that’s being offered. It’s all over social media and seeps into marketing and advertising. I hate it.

But I fear that the more people read AI slop, the more normal it becomes until it becomes, God forbid, the accepted and expected way to communicate. Already there is some evidence that people prefer AI generated content to that of humans.

And for those of us in the business of communicating with and persuading others, we may have to face a reality we don’t like and change some things about how we communicate. But some things, like the ability to tell stories convincingly and to decide what facts resonate, will for the time being fall within the human domain. At least I hope so.

Here is my post on this subject for Above the Law

For years, I have been concerned that cybersecurity and the risk of data breach does not get the attention they deserve at many law firms. Part of it is becasue law firm leadership often does not understand cybersecurity and part of it is cybersecurity is just a cost drain.

That’s why the new IBM study of today’s data breach landscape is important reading even though it does not look at the problem for the legal business. The study clearly shows that AI is enabling cyber attacks to occur incrementaly faster and take less time and cost for the bad guys. And for the good guys, the attacks will on average cost some $1 million more than they used to be. The study confirms many of my worst fears. Here’s my discussion for Above the Law.

I’ve tracked what the well-known document management provider, NetDocuments, is doing ever since the firm I used to be with was with was an early adopter. And I’ve always liked their “we’re not a rock band” attitude: producing apps and products in a workmanlike manner without the hype of some vendors.

So it caught my attention when it recently waded into the plaintiffs’ contingency fee legal market with three new apps. And how it got there is an interesting story. Here’s my discussion of both for Above the Law.

Last week’s announcement of the move by Wachtell’s co-chair and veteran litigator to Gibson Dunn certainly got a lot of press. Rightfully so. But I started to think about what’s contributing to or maybe causing so many partners to jump ship. Certainly money has something to do with it. But so do technology and AI. Here are my thoughts for Above the Law on why this is the case and what it could mean for law firm management.

When I ran across a recent study by the Blickstein Group of COOs in law firms I wondered if things had changed from the days when equity partners pretty much decided everything. If they had COOs, too often they ignored them or treated them as 2nd class citizens.

After reading the study, it’s clear that while the status of COOs may have grown, true decision-making and power in most law firms still rests with the equity partners. And there’s still a gap between the way businesspeople think and the way lawyers who think they are businesspeople think.

It made me think about why that problem seems so intractable which I explore in my Above the Law post. 

We’ve all been to them: presentations you think will be substantive. But when they start, you’re told the session will be interactive with table exercises. Most of us immediately start plotting the easiest path to an exit. Having recently been to one just like that, it started me thinking about the difficulties in getting lawyers to use technology. And a lot of that stems from poor training.

It also made me conclude that interactive and table exercises as a tool for training lawyers how to actually use technology, probably won’t work very well.

Why and what will? Read the full piece in my post for Above the Law.