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Big Law Isn’t Buying AI Anymore. It’s Building It.

 

A never-ending debate is whether to build your own legal AI tool through vibe coding/hiring someone to build it, or buy enterprise software. For most of us, there isn’t much of an option besides buying market software. For big law, however, firms with huge IT departments may be better off building their own tools, and they might even be able to sell them to their clients. Now, not only are the firms building their own tools, they are partnering with AI firms to build those tools. 

 

When a firm like Freshfields partners directly with Anthropic, it signals a power shift. This isn’t a vendor relationship. It’s co-development. Instead of asking: “Which AI tool should we use?” Top firms are now asking: “How do we shape the tools themselves?” I find it odd that the legaltech vendors built these tools for big law and now big law is turning around and saying, yeah, we will build our own, thanks. Was it the $500/per head monthly subscription or the $45,000 a year costs that turned big law off? I think so. They sure weren't targeting the small to mid-sized firms. Gone are the days of basic review tools that you could charge hundreds and thousands for. 

 

It will be interesting to see what kind of tools big law will create, considering they are the ‘legal experts.’ I suspect, and I could be wrong, that they will build legaltech tools for their existing clients and for clients with smaller budgets who would otherwise never have been able to afford their services. This is a win for access to justice, but may not be good news for mid-sized firms already struggling to compete with wealthy big law! 

 

These collaborations will likely focus on AI-assisted legal research, drafting and review systems, and internal knowledge workflows. This guess is based on the general day-to-day work of lawyers, but time will tell. They may focus on certain industries like finance, M&A, and energy. 

 

So, big law firms are no longer just consumers of legal tech; they’re becoming participants in its design and driving the legaltech industry forward. The partnerships between big law and AI companies will create a competitive divide, with firms shaping AI vs. firms adapting to it.