MPL Legal Tech Advisors: The Legal AI Brief

Thursday, 8th January 2026 - 18th Edition​​​​

This Week's Theme: Clarity Before Action

January is when law firms make AI decisions.

New budgets, fresh pressure and resolutions to finally figure this out.

But let's be honest, most of those decisions won't stick. If last year taught us anything, it’s that the starting point matters more than the technology.

Too many firms skipped the diagnostic step and moved straight to solutions. Software was chosen before anyone was clear on what was actually broken.

That's why the result was so predictable. By February most initiatives stalled and by March, they were quietly shelved.

So this week we are all about how firms that will make significant progress in 2026 won't start the year with tools, but rather with clarity.

Insight of the Week

After working with dozens of firms last year, I clearly saw the pattern.

The ones who struggle don't struggle because they missed on subscribing to whatever specialized legal AI solution their competitors were using.

They simply never identified where their problem actually is.

Is it tools? Maybe. But often the tool isn't the bottleneck.

Is it workflows? Sometimes. Messy handoffs and undocumented processes kill adoption faster than bad software.

Is it data? Frequently. If your files are scattered and inconsistently named, no AI will fix that.

Is it compliance? Often overlooked. Firms assume they're covered until something surfaces in an audit or insurance review.

Firms that make progress tend to identify which of these is actually in the way before doing anything else.

And for January, we're offering a short, no-prep call for firms that want a second opinion on that starting point.

It won't transform your firm overnight. But it will keep you from wasting the next three months, potentially whole year, on the wrong path.

Book your 15-min AI readiness call

Legal AI in Action

🎬 AI Browser Agents: Useful or Risky for Law Firms?

Why law firms should be careful

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🎬 AI or Automation: What do Law Firms Really Need?

Why most firms misbuy

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📰 New Article Published!

My takes on what changed in legal AI in 2025 and why should you care

https://legalversemedia.com/legal-ai-in-2025-what-actually-changed/ By the end of 2025, legal AI stopped being a speculative topic and became a practical one.

Red Flag of the Week

If your 2026 AI plan starts with evaluating tools or picking a vendor, you've already skipped the step that determines whether any of it will work.

Tool selection is step four. Not step one.

The firms that will succeed this year will spend January getting clear on what's actually broken. The rest will spend it in demo meetings that lead nowhere.

What the Legal AI Frontlines Are Saying

Three patterns showed up repeatedly in year-end conversations with managing partners and ops leads:

1. "We tried AI last year, but it didn't stick."

When I dig deeper, the answer is almost never "the tool was bad". It's "we didn't know where to start, so we started everywhere".

2. "We're under pressure to do something, but we don't know what."

Client expectations, competitor noise, and internal curiosity are all pushing at once. That pressure leads to action without direction.

3. "We need someone to just tell us the right first step."

Nobody needs a McKinsey style 50-page roadmap. Law firms benefit from clarity on what's actually worth doing next.

Looking Ahead

🎙 This Saturday at 2pm CET!

This week’s guest on Rok’s Legal AI Conversations is Neil Jennings, founder of GLF Strategic Compliance, specializing in AI governance, legal risk, and international privacy compliance. We talk about his "know your needs" framework (landscape > process > tools > gap analysis), why most teams underestimate cross-border AI exposure, what "governance" looks like in practice (risk tolerance, ownership, breaking silos), and why transparency, dark patterns, and shadow AI are already real problems for firms trying to adopt AI safely.

Define the problem before buying AI tools

Each edition of Legal AI Brief brings practical lessons from firms using AI safely.