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ARTICLE · 18 MARCH 2026

Legal Work Is Unbundled, But Pricing Hasn't Caught Up

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Pricing, staffing, and budgeting decisions in our field no longer match how the work gets done. The operating system for legal work is.

United StatesTechnology
Gregory Williamson
Gregory Williamson
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Pricing, staffing, and budgeting decisions in our field no longer match how the work gets done. The operating system for legal work is.

Every conversation you see about AI tools or billable hours is downstream from this structural reality. AI did not create this problem, and the billable hour is not unethical or obsolete in principle. The problem is that the inputs and the outputs don't match.

This is apparent when legal departments are asked to do more with shrinking budgets, move faster, reduce friction, and show clearer returns on outside counsel spend. You see this mismatch when the use of AI tools forces us to ask, what is our work worth?.

Today, it is glaringly apparent that this model distorts the way law firms and their clients make decisions .

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