Lawyer Value in an AI World? Conversation with Damien Riehl
Episode 40 with one of my favorite legal AI evangelists.
You could argue that 2025 was the first year that lawyers meaningfully adopted AI at work. Will 2026 be the first year lawyers begin seriously rethinking their business model? Clio’s Damien Riehl thinks so.
Hey there, I’m Zach Abramowitz and I’m Legally Disrupted.
Whenever I bump into Damien at a conference (or on redeye flight), he always has a unique take on the market to share. I always leave the interaction thinking “Man, I wish I had been recording that.” That’s why I decided to bring him on for 🎙️Episode 40 of Zach Abramowitz is Legally Disrupted. We got right down to it, discussing why we haven’t actually hit the peak of profitability for lawyers just yet. He argues that the law firms and lawyers who decouple time from value and shift from hourly billing to flat fees are going to make significantly more money. I think we could be headed for a $10,000 billable hour before we see the elimination of the billable hour.
In the course of our discussion, we also dove into why in-house counsel is currently ahead of law firms when it comes to AI adoption, and how the combination of AI-first law firms, Arizona Alternative Business Structures (ABS), and the removal of ABA accreditation moats in Texas and Florida are setting the stage for massive disruption. We also explored the wild future of plaintiff bots battling defense bots, and why the “humanity” of rainmaking will remain the ultimate competitive advantage for lawyers.
Episode 41 with Jamie Tso and Raymond Sun from Legal Quants drops early this week so make sure to subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and/or Spotify. Subscribing to the newsletter will also work.
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