ClioCon 2025 closed on a high note with Richard Susskind, the world’s most cited author on the future of legal services and one of the foremost thinkers on artificial intelligence and society. Over two days of keynotes, product showcases, and discussions about the evolution of legal work, attendees heard from innovators across the profession. Susskind’s closing talk, “How to Think About AI,” brought it all together with a panoramic view of how technology, law, and human purpose are converging.
From Power Drills to Outcomes
Susskind began with a metaphor that has long framed his thinking about change. Just as Black & Decker customers do not buy drills for their own sake but for the holes they create, clients do not seek legal services for the process itself but for the results that process delivers—clarity, protection, and resolution. The legal profession, he argued, has spent decades refining its “drill” while neglecting to ask whether new technologies could deliver the same outcomes in entirely different ways.
He distinguished between automation and innovation. Automation uses technology to make existing tasks more efficient. Innovation uses it to achieve things that were once impossible. Much of the past half century of legal technology has focused on automating traditional tasks; the next era, he suggested, will belong to innovation that reimagines how legal outcomes are delivered.
The Long View of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence has deeper roots than many realize. Its conceptual beginnings stretch back to Alan Turing’s question, “Can machines think?” in 1950, and its first legal applications appeared in the 1970s and 1980s. What changed in recent years is accessibility. When large language models entered public consciousness in 2022, they made AI feel immediate and practical for lawyers. Tasks that once required human interpretation—summarizing, drafting, analyzing—suddenly became available on demand.
Susskind positioned this moment not as the culmination of AI but as the beginning of a steeper ascent. Computing power continues to double roughly every six months, and the number of breakthroughs is accelerating. What feels extraordinary today, he noted, will soon seem primitive.
Six Ways to Think About the Future of AI
To frame the range of possibilities ahead, Susskind outlined six prevailing hypotheses among experts about where AI might lead:
The Hype Hypothesis: AI’s current systems are limited and will eventually disappoint, triggering another period of disillusionment.
The GenAI Plus Hypothesis: Today’s models will become more reliable and integrated into everyday life but will not evolve beyond their present architecture.
The AGI Hypothesis: Within the next decade, systems may match human performance across most intellectual tasks, reshaping every profession.
The Superintelligence Hypothesis: Once machines reach human-level capability, they will rapidly surpass it and develop abilities far beyond human comprehension.
The Singularity Hypothesis: Humans and AI will merge, using technology to augment intelligence and potentially consciousness itself.
The AI Evolution Hypothesis: Humanity’s enduring role may be to create systems that ultimately succeed it.
For lawyers, the first three represent the practical horizon. Whether or not AGI arrives by 2035, the responsible approach is to plan for it rather than dismiss the possibility.
Progress, Adoption, and the Gaps Between
Technological progress and professional adoption rarely move in sync. The speed of innovation outpaces the willingness of institutions to adapt. That lag can be a comfort, but it also defines opportunity. Firms that experiment early gain fluency and advantage long before others.
Susskind described several recurring blind spots in the legal mindset. Many professionals judge the future by the limitations of current tools. Others believe transformation will affect every field except their own. And some insist that clients will always prefer human contact, overlooking that most clients primarily want timely, reliable outcomes.
From Automation to Innovation to Elimination
In the near term, AI will continue to automate legal work, improving drafting, research, and communication. Over time, however, the profession will move from efficiency gains to genuine transformation—systems that deliver outcomes through entirely new channels. Eventually, AI may help eliminate many of the problems lawyers currently solve, shifting the focus from dispute resolution to risk prevention and proactive compliance.
Susskind likened this evolution to medicine’s transition from invasive treatment to preventative care. The goal is not faster legal services but fewer legal crises. In that world, law becomes less about reaction and more about design.
Building the Future Instead of Competing with It
A key choice lies ahead. Lawyers can compete with machines by focusing on tasks AI cannot yet perform, or they can participate in building the systems that will redefine how those tasks are done. The latter path requires new skills and partnerships. The next generation of professionals—legal engineers, data scientists, and product designers—will translate legal expertise into digital solutions that clients can use directly.
The business model will shift from selling time to creating systems, content, and insights that scale. Law firms that recognize this early will not only preserve relevance but expand their reach.
Practical Steps Toward Readiness
For many, the best place to start is by experimenting with AI every day. Even short, routine use helps build intuition about what these tools can and cannot do. Firms can begin by optimizing existing workflows, then exploring how AI might transform client delivery and eventually diversify revenue streams through new offerings.
These incremental steps cultivate adaptability, the skill that will matter most as technology accelerates.
Rethinking Time, Work, and Value
Susskind closed by reframing the question that underlies all technological change in law. The issue is not what the future holds for lawyers, but how people and organizations will solve the problems lawyers once solved for them.
That question lands especially clearly in the context of timekeeping. For decades, the legal industry has measured value by hours recorded rather than outcomes achieved. AI challenges that assumption. Intelligent systems can now capture work activity automatically, describe it with precision, and link it to client matters without manual input. This shifts attention away from the mechanics of logging time and toward the higher goal of demonstrating impact and efficiency.
In this sense, timekeeping becomes a proving ground for the ideas Susskind described. It moves from automation—simply tracking time faster—to innovation, where AI surfaces previously unseen patterns of effort and value. And, eventually, toward elimination, where much of the administrative friction that burdens professionals disappears altogether.
The future of AI in law will not be defined by replacing people but by redefining what their time represents.
