Alejandro Touriño has published an opinion piece in the ICAM journal on ‘AI-native law firms’
Alejandro Touriño, managing partner at ECIJA, Chair of the ICT Section and Director of the Master’s in Digital Law and Disruptive Technologies at the Madrid Bar Association (ICAM), has published an opinion piece in the journal of the Madrid Bar Association (ICAM) entitled “AI-native law firms: the next major transformation of legal services’”.
In the article, Touriño reflects on a phenomenon which, as he explains, is already transforming the legal market in the United States and the United Kingdom: the emergence of law firms designed from the outset around artificial intelligence, as opposed to the traditional model of incorporating AI as an additional technology into existing structures.
The author examines examples such as Crosby, Avantia (with its Ava platform, acquired by Carta Law) and the case of Garfield in the UK — the first firm authorised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to provide AI-based legal services — to illustrate how these new structures are competing directly with traditional law firms.
Touriño argues that true innovation does not lie in incorporating AI tools into existing processes, but in rethinking operational models, cost structures and the very way in which legal services are provided from scratch. He also warns that this change will not be confined to Anglo-Saxon markets, but will eventually take hold in Europe.
The opinion piece concludes with a reflection on the role of the lawyer in this new paradigm: artificial intelligence does not replace the professional, but rather shifts the profession’s centre of gravity towards those genuinely human capabilities — judgement, strategy, negotiation, legal creativity and an understanding of the client’s business — which are difficult to replicate using algorithms.
Download Alejandro Touriño’s opinion piece here
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Alejandro Touriño has published an opinion piece in the journal of the Madrid Bar Association (ICAM) in which he analyses the emergence of ‘AI-native law firms’: firms conceived from the outset with artificial intelligence at the heart of their business model, rather than as a mere support tool
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