Not too long ago, telling a colleague you used AI to draft a contract might have earned you raised eyebrows and questions about taking shortcuts. Today, this scrutiny is reversing. The same peers who side-eye AI use are starting to ask a different question. Why are you still spending time and money on routine tasks that could be done faster?
The Lazy Argument Falls Apart
The first objection people raise about AI use is laziness. But learning to use these tools effectively takes real effort. Anyone who has worked with generative AI knows that getting useful, accurate output requires skill. You need to understand how to frame requests, refine results, and recognize when the output is useful versus when it misses the mark entirely.
For legal professionals, maintaining technology competency is not optional. Since AI tools are becoming standard in legal practice, covering everything from discovery to drafting, knowing how to use them is now a fundamental part of professional competency. The attorneys who invest the time to master these tools are increasingly positioned to produce higher quality work than those avoiding them. The better practitioners become at integrating AI, the more the quality of their work improves.
The Line of Responsibility: Verification is Key
If professional scrutiny belongs anywhere in this conversation, it is in the misuse of AI rather than the use itself. Attorneys remain responsible for everything that goes out under their name, regardless of how it was created.
Here is where human psychology becomes relevant. Research shows that people naturally over-rely on technology that presents information authoritatively. When AI output appears in polished, professionally written, and properly formatted language, we have a powerful instinct, known as automation bias, to trust it.
Courts have already seen what happens when verification fails. Attorneys file briefs containing fabricated citations because they did not check what the AI generated. The technology simply did what it does—generating plausible, but sometimes invented, content. The shame is not in using AI to draft documents or conduct initial research; the shame is in treating it as infallible and skipping the necessary verification that professional responsibility requires.
The Shifting Standard of Professional Competency
The conversation is shifting to whether failing to use AI might itself become a problem. This raises uncomfortable questions about billing ethics and professional competency.
Consider fee recovery in litigation. Some cases allow prevailing parties to recover attorney fees, but those fees must be reasonable. If AI can complete a specific research task in one hour that would otherwise take five, what happens to the fee request? Courts will ask whether the time spent was necessary. Opposing parties will argue that only the efficient method should be compensable.
The same question applies to hourly billing. Clients are becoming sophisticated legal technology consumers. When they see bills reflecting many hours on routine tasks, they wonder whether they are paying for inefficiency.
The competency obligation cuts both ways. Using AI carelessly and producing flawed work clearly falls short of professional standards. But as these tools become standard practice, choosing not to use them at all starts to raise a different liability. If most attorneys are using available technology to work more efficiently, does refusing to engage with it truly serve the client's best interests?
What Happens Next
The legal profession is rapidly evolving. The stigma associated with using AI is disappearing, replaced by growing concerns about the consequences of not using it. This transition demands that legal professionals understand AI's limits, maintain human oversight for all final work, and effectively capture the efficiency benefits it offers. While various legal practices and firm sizes will adapt uniquely, the fundamental conversation has shifted. The issue is no longer whether AI usage is acceptable; it is increasingly whether a failure to use it is justifiable.
Lawyers who acknowledge and engage with the new AI-driven law practice are positioned to enhance client service and improve their profitability.