The legal industry spent the last decade obsessing over which practice management software to buy. Which document automation tool. Which legal research platform. Firms hired consultants, formed committees, negotiated contracts, and convinced themselves that picking the right vendor was strategic planning.
That approach is dead. It died the moment AI became a utility.
Law firms are treating AI like it's just another software category. They're forming AI selection committees. They're requesting demos from legal tech vendors charging hundreds per user per month for what amounts to a wrapper around ChatGPT. They're debating whether to adopt "AI tools" as if AI is something you choose to use rather than something that simply exists in every tool you touch.
This must have been what it was like watching firms in 1998 form committees to decide whether to "adopt the internet." The question isn't whether to use AI. The question isn't even which AI tool to use. Those questions miss the point entirely.
Here's what firms should understand: AI is infrastructure. It's the internet, not a website. It's electricity, not a lamp. And just like you can't run a modern law practice without computers and internet access, within three years you won't be able to compete without AI fluency.
The difference between firms that thrive and firms that die won't be which vendor they picked. It will be whether their lawyers learned how to think with AI.
The Vendor Selection Theater
Right now, legal AI vendors are selling the same story software companies have sold for decades: "Our tool is special. Our tool is built for lawyers. Our tool understands your unique needs." And firms are buying it because it feels like doing something about AI without actually changing anything fundamental.
But look at what these vendors are actually selling. Most legal AI products are taking Claude, GPT-5, or Gemini, adding a legal-themed interface, and charging 10 to 20 times what those underlying models cost directly. They're selling access to infrastructure and calling it specialized software.
This is like paying premium prices for "lawyer internet" when regular internet works fine. It's like hiring a company to operate your electricity for you instead of just plugging things in.
The obsession with vendor selection is comfortable. It's what firms know how to do. It requires RFPs and committees and approvals, all of which feel like due diligence. But it's theater. It's a way to feel like you're addressing AI without confronting what AI actually means: that the source of competitive advantage has shifted from what you buy to what you know.
Why This Time Is Actually Different
I know. Every technology wave gets called revolutionary. Every vendor claims their product changes everything. Usually it doesn't. Usually you can wait and see. Usually being a fast follower is fine.
Not this time.
The internet comparison isn't rhetorical. It's structural. When the internet arrived, it didn't matter which web browser you used or which email client you preferred. What mattered was whether you understood how the internet changed information flow, communication, and business models. The lawyers who figured that out early built practices that didn't exist before. The lawyers who waited for their firms to "select an internet strategy" spent the next decade playing catch-up.
AI is following the same pattern, but faster. In 1998, you could still practice law without email. By 2005, you couldn't. That was a seven-year window. With AI, the window is three years, maybe less.
The reason is simple: AI is already everywhere. It's in your word processor. It's in your research tools. It's in your email. The question isn't whether you'll use AI. You already are. The question is whether you're using it intentionally or accidentally, skillfully or clumsily.
And here's the part that makes vendor selection particularly pointless: the underlying models are converging. Claude, GPT, and Gemini are all excellent. The differences between them matter less than the difference between someone who knows how to use any of them well and someone who doesn't. Picking between them is like picking between Ford and Chevy when what you really need is a driver's license.
The Real Competitive Advantage
The firms that will dominate in five years aren't the ones with the best AI subscriptions. They're the ones where every lawyer knows how to analyze contracts faster, draft motions better, research issues deeper, and communicate with clients clearer using AI as a natural extension of their thinking.
This isn't about automating lawyers away. It's about making lawyers more capable. A lawyer who can use AI to quickly generate ten different approaches to a legal argument, evaluate each one critically, and synthesize the best elements into something stronger than any individual approach is simply a better lawyer than one who can't.
That capability doesn't come from software. It comes from practice. From experimentation. From understanding how these systems think, where they're strong, where they're weak, and how to work with them effectively.
This is why the vendor selection approach fails. You can't buy this capability. You can't install it. You have to build it, lawyer by lawyer, over time. And that takes something firms are notoriously bad at: education that isn't CLE credit farming.
What This Means Tomorrow
In three years, every junior associate will join your firm expecting AI to be available the way they expect WiFi to be available. They won't ask whether your firm "has AI." They'll ask whether your firm knows how to use it.
In three years, clients will assume their lawyers are using AI to work faster and smarter. They won't pay for learning curves. They'll expect you already know how to leverage AI for better results at lower costs.
In three years, the phrase "AI tools" will sound as dated as "internet tools" sounds now. AI won't be a category of software. It will be an assumed capability in all software.
The firms preparing for that world aren't comparing vendor pricing. They're teaching their lawyers how to prompt effectively. They're creating cultures where experimentation is encouraged. They're treating AI fluency as a core competency, not a nice-to-have add-on.
The question isn't which AI tool to pick. The question is whether your firm will spend the next three years building AI fluency or building vendor selection committees. Because only one of those activities prepares you for what's coming.
The internet didn't care which browser you used. AI doesn't care which vendor you pick. Both care whether you understand how to think and work in a world where they exist.
