P2P

P E E R T O P E E R M A G A Z I N E · S P R I N G 2 0 2 6 85 field study, "Generative AI at Work" by Brynjolfsson & Raymond, generative AI increased productivity by around 14%, on average, with gains above 30% among less experienced workers. Even if legal teams capture only part of that uplift in routine drafting and synthesis, the cost and turnaround implications are material at scale. The secondary effects are even more significant. If routine drafting cycles compress by just 10 to 15%, internal throughput increases without proportional headcount growth. If cross-check cycles accelerate, external spend may shift from broad research mandates to targeted validation engagements. Over time, this changes cost curves and budget allocation. In other words, baseline work will increasingly occur inside the client's knowledge layer, while external expertise is invoked more selectively. THE DISRUPTION QUESTION FOR LAW FIRMS The DPA example illustrates a redistribution of work and states the obvious: For firms whose revenue depends heavily on mid-tier, repeatable analysis, this matters a great deal for the bottom line. The shift is enabled by architecture, so when clients control their knowledge layer and can access external expertise selectively through standardized interfaces, the traditional legal service bundles of research, drafting, and commentary begin to unbundle. Harkening back to the decades- old disruption theory outlined in "The Innovator's Dilemma," it explains how incumbents feel pressure when value shifts to whoever controls how work is structured and routed. In legal services, clients will increasingly control their side of the knowledge interface, causing increased pressure on traditional legal advisory, commercial, and delivery models. Now consider if clients begin to benchmark firms -- not primarily on hourly rates -- but on the structure and "machine readability" of their knowledge assets? As standard and structured execution moves in-house to clients, demand for advisory services will concentrate on more complex work, such as: • Interpretation under uncertainty • Strategic regulatory positioning • Cross-border structuring • High-stakes advisory judgment In other words, the revenue mix evolves upward, and the strategic question for firms is whether they just treat their knowledge layer as a defensive asset or as the foundation for a new delivery model. THE OPPORTUNITY: STRUCTURED, INTEROPERABLE EXPERTISE There is always a silver lining. And the scenario above reveals significant opportunities for law firms with an appetite for growth and scale. If law firms deliberately structure their own knowledge layer, they can participate directly in interoperable workflows, rather than reacting clumsily or adversely to them. A firm's knowledge layer might contain: • Clause-level insights and annotations linked to enforcement trends • Jurisdiction-specific compliance matrices • Structured decision trees and associated logic • Sector overlays and risk scoring logic

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