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17 July 2026 / Professor Luke Mason
Issue: 8170 / Categories: Features , Profession , Legal services , Technology , Career focus
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Flash forward for legal services?

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Professor Luke Mason considers the seismic shift taking place within legal services, and its impact on firms and legal education

  • Discusses how the legal profession is moving from simply providing services to delivering technology-driven products.
  • Considers how best to prepare the next generation of lawyers.

The explosion of new technology, including but not limited to generative artificial intelligence (AI), has affected every industry, from finance and transport all the way through to health and childcare. Across every sector, we have seen a cultural shift from the provision of services to a consumption of digital products—and law is no exception, despite being slightly behind the trend due to its conservative and complex nature.

We already know technology has streamlined many legal processes, such as drafting and reviewing. However, there is a larger shift at hand and it is happening behind the scenes: the expectation that you can engage with services via products. This confluence of technological shifts, coinciding with law being a factor on all of these

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Harneys—Maggie Kwok & George Weston

Harneys—Maggie Kwok & George Weston

Harneys senior leadership appointments

Freeths—Keith Browne & Jim Jordan

Freeths—Keith Browne & Jim Jordan

Freeths strengthens London Construction and Engineering practice with two strategic senior hires

Anthony Collins—Laura Moss

Anthony Collins—Laura Moss

Anthony Collins announces strategic hire to deepen skills base in the social business sector

NEWS
More than 100 teams from the legal and financial services sectors competed in five sports at the 51st Law Society RFC Festival of Sport earlier this month
Part-time status need only be an effective cause of less favourable treatment, rather than the sole cause, the Supreme Court has held in Augustine v Data Cars
Britain’s new acknowledgement that Israel’s occupation is unlawful, and accompanying settlement-goods ban and sanctions, is significant but overdue, argue Danny Friedman KC and Victor Kattan in NLJ this week
New planning fee rises, wider trade union access rights and a service-by-email trap feature in Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way
Existing defamation law can respond to AI ‘hallucinations’, but allocating responsibility will prove harder where outputs reach users without human intervention
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