Last year (2024) I was fortunate enough to be in the room for a convention-challenging presentation given by futurist and law firm CTIO Eric Hunter – not once, but twice. Firstly, at the Bristol and Bath LegalTech conference, and then at the British Legal tech Forum. Hunter sure covered some ground, taking his audience on a journey from Genghis Khan to Neuralink. You had to be there. But let me share an analogy Hunter made which continues to resonate.

Fly me to the moon

More than two decades ago, in 2004, Elon Musk talked openly about his ambition that his SpaceX venture would partner with NASA. Four years later a deal was done for SpaceX to ferry cargo to the International Space Station. The duo haven’t looked back since, with the first commercial space flight operated by SpaceX and carrying NASA astronauts launching in 2020. But, clearly, the relationship was not all plain sailing. As a CNN article from 2020 put it, the two organisations had to overcome a ‘bitter culture clash’ to achieve their goals. Take this passage from the same article: NASA preferred slow, methodical approaches and detailed documentation to organize the process. SpaceX’s strategy was to move fast and continuously make changes. NASA, highly risk averse (understandably) and slow moving, was partnering with a market innovator whose DNA compelled it to do things differently and, by extension, be prepared to take more (calculated) risks.

From lunar to legal

Where’s all this going? Up until a few years ago you could have replaced the words NASA and SpaceX in the above passage with ‘law firms’ and ‘tech’. A similar ‘clash of cultures’ has been at play for a while now in the legal sector and, while there are of course many examples of first movers and market innovators, by and large the industry retains a reputation for being conservative and risk averse, particularly when it comes to the adoption of new technologies. This, at least partly, is reinforced by the partnership model that makes up the majority of the industry – and which prioritises a consensus building approach that can, in some instances, reduce the ability to be agile. As an example, the 2025 Thomson Reuters State of the UK Legal Market report suggested that two thirds of law firms will only adopt AI after they have seen others implement the technology successfully, or will wait until there is more mainstream adoption with proven results. The pace of change is being challenged by many firms, though, with almost a third of Thomson Reuters’ survey respondents believing that the implementation of AI at their firms is too slow – with competitive disadvantage a real risk. Legaltech innovators meanwhile, particularly those which have proliferated since the coming of age of GenAI in 2022, are moving fast. They are disrupting business models. They are bringing new solutions both to law firms and inhouse legal departments which are challenging traditional ways of ‘doing legal work’. At the same time, though, poor application of technology is a significant threat which, at its most severe, risks undermining trust and confidence in legal advice and the legal system more generally. SpaceX, too, has had its controversies – sometimes operational, sometimes driven by its founder… But, as CNN put it, “many NASA engineers grew to respect the company and its unorthodox process.”

Cost, efficiency and collaboration

Of course, one of the key drivers of the SpaceX and NASA partnership was (and is), as Elon Musk put it in 2004, ‘lowering the cost of access to space’. Extending the analogy, this is where some of the tensions begin to emerge in the legal sector. Larger firms seem to be confident that GenAI, for instance, will have a net positive impact on revenues – allowing them to improve productivity, and do more work at higher speeds for their client base. For smaller firms, the picture is a bit more patchy. There is a greater sense that clients will demand the same volume of work but at a lower price point, or even that clients will use AI tools themselves to reduce the need for external legal counsel. Legaltech companies themselves are mindful of these dynamics. Many are at pains to stress in their own communications that they are not replacing lawyers, but are ‘empowering them to do more for less and to focus on higher value, more strategic work.’ Or other such boiler plate and reassuring language. Some however are becoming more bullish in their proposition. We are also seeing closer partnerships, even more similar to the SpaceX and NASA collaboration – such as A&O Shearman coming together with legal AI leader Harvey to develop new solutions not just for the benefit of A&O Shearman’s lawyers and clients but which will also be marketed to other law firms and legal teams.

A new legal value proposition?

Whether reducing time spent on matters by using AI translates into cost savings for the client, or enhanced profits for the firm, will be a defining question for both law firms and legaltech companies. In the case of law firms, the answer will likely be both driven by firm culture, and have implications for it. For instance, research suggests that law firm compensation models are rarely built to reward things like innovation or technological prowess. Will this need to change? Will more law firms need to adopt a corporate business structure, or bring more non-lawyers into the partnership fold to attract and retain technology talent? Similarly, many law firms may need to make the cultural leap from being great at business development and services marketing, to being great at selling products. This is a different ball game, and one which has already led to tensions in some law firm – tech partnerships (Norton Rose vs NMBL, for instance). Taken together, how firms position their value proposition - both to clients and to talent - in an AI-powered world is, inevitably, going to be a critical strategic marketing and communications challenge in the coming years; and one that legaltech marketers will be navigating too. For legaltech companies, or SpaceX in our analogy, a key question moving forwards will be to what extent does it support, or replace, “NASA”? 95% of rocket launches in the US last year came from SpaceX, while NASA is reportedly facing swingeing cuts… Has the incumbent ceded its position to the radical disruptor? Let’s be clear. Technology is never going to replace lawyers. Human critical faculties, analytical skills, understanding, empathy and indeed imagination are all way too important. NASA (and the US government) may now be entirely dependent on commercial partners like SpaceX, but there are no missions without the NASA astronauts and their exceptional training. Take comfort, lawyers!