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As the dust settles on another transformative Legalweek, one thing is abundantly clear: the legal industry's relationship with artificial intelligence has fundamentally shifted. The conversations at this year's conference revealed a maturity in how law firms, corporate legal departments, and technology providers approach AI integration. Gone are the days of speculative discussions about AI's potential; instead, the focus has shifted to practical implementation, ethical considerations, and how these tools are reshaping lawyer wellness and training.

The vLex team was excited to showcase our Winter '25 release of Vincent AI at Legalweek this year, demonstrating how our platform continues to evolve to meet the needs of legal professionals worldwide. Our latest updates include our new multimodal AI capabilities that transform audio and video content into actionable legal intelligence, enhanced Docket Alarm integrations that bring data analytics to life and surface fresh discoveries, and expanded global coverage with four new countries: Hong Kong, Italy, Peru, and Ecuador. We also introduced our upgraded Build an Argument workflow, allowing lawyers to craft more persuasive, citation-backed legal arguments faster than ever before.

In this post, we'll explore the key themes that emerged from Legalweek 2025, including the state of the legal (AI) industry, the growing demand for substantive AI solutions, how legal education is adapting to prepare the next generation of lawyers, and the critical focus on wellness in an AI-enhanced legal profession.

State of the Legal (AI) Industry

The legal AI landscape is experiencing what Ilona Logvinova of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP describes as the combination of imagination and the new art of the possibility. It's not just about adopting new technology—it's about reimagining the practice of law with substance and purpose. From Ilona’s perspective, “We have a pathway to change things,” but to take advantage of the benefits of AI, “it takes a rewiring of an organization's internal engines.”

During a panel on the State of AI in the Legal Industry, Danielle Benecke of Baker McKenzie offered a clarifying perspective for law firm leaders: "If you create value, you win. Focus on your clients. Focus on value." This client-centered approach cuts through the noise and hype that often surrounds legal technology discussions.

In another critical discussion on “Transforming Knowledge Management into a Revenue Generator: Advanced Strategies for Law Firms,” Ilona further emphasized the fundamental shift occurring in how we think about legal knowledge: "When we think about KM, we are seeing it as a transformation... If you recognize words are data, we don't just deliver words, we deliver data... so how do we provide better data deliverables?" This perspective acknowledges that as an industry historically focused on words, legal professionals now need to recognize that those words are data—and “AI eats data.” What are we feeding it?

Perhaps most provocatively, Ilona also shared a quote from Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, that captures the moment we find ourselves in: “The IT department of every company is going to be the HR department of AI agents in the future.” As agentic AI continues to develop, legal professionals will need to adapt to a reality where they're not just managing human colleagues but also AI systems. This means we need to wrestle with bigger questions on how this will take shape in the legal industry, how it will impact connectivity and productivity, and how it will change service delivery to clients.

Rebecca Engrav, Partner & Firmwide Co-Chair of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning at Perkins Coie, spoke directly to the attorneys at Legalweek, noting that "It's a really exciting time to be a lawyer... This is your time to shine." With regulations struggling to keep pace with technological development, lawyers have a crucial role in interpreting and shaping the emerging legal frameworks around AI.

The Search for Substance

One of the most striking themes from Legalweek 2025 was the industry's growing demand for substance over flash when it comes to legal AI tools. The excitement of novelty has given way to a pragmatic focus on tools that deliver real value.

Zach Posner, Co-Founder & Managing Director of The LegalTech Fund, highlighted this shift during a panel on regulatory evolution: "We're not looking for the best tech necessarily,” Zach said, “we're looking for the best user experience." From his perspective, with technology evolving so rapidly, what truly differentiates legal tech companies is a "gorgeous front-end" that lawyers want to use and will integrate into their daily workflows.

Jeremy W. Burdge of ELTEMATE (Hogan Lovells) succinctly captured this sentiment with his observation that "The best technology is the one you don't know you're using." The most effective legal AI tools should function like magic—powerful and transformative, yet seamlessly integrated into a lawyer's workflows.

Evan Shenkman of Fisher Phillips emphasized the practical benefits of this approach from a KM vantage point: "If we can make attorneys work better and faster and provide better client services, that's what we should lead with." He noted that attorneys using AI tools are producing "faster work product, better work product, and more updates to the work product," and that "If you can work faster for less hours, clients will give you more work,” and given Fisher Phillips forward-thinking approach to AI, Evan noted that “our attorneys are getting more work than ever."

Transparency also emerged as a crucial element in building trust with legal AI. As Ilona put it, "Transparency is the name of the game." Using a retail analogy, she asked, "Think about going to the store - are you going to buy something with a nutrition label or without?" Legal professionals and clients alike want to understand what's powering their AI tools and how results are being generated. People buy products with labels - show your work, and don’t be afraid to put the calorie count.

Training Lawyers in the Age of AI

As AI tools become increasingly embedded in legal practice, a critical question emerges: how do we prepare the next generation of lawyers for this new reality?

Nicola Shaver, CEO & Co-Founder of Legaltech Hub and adjunct professor at Cardozo School of Law, shared how dramatically student attitudes have shifted. Where once her students expressed fear about AI's impact on their future careers, this year "for the first time, her students expressed excitement about AI and how they're going to be using it as future lawyers." As Shaver noted, "Associates will come ready to use AI and they're keen to do so."

This enthusiasm is matched by demand in the workplace. Evan Shenkman observed that "The most common question in my day job - is there a GenAI solution for this?" During a panel on "The AI Training Revolution: Equipping Young Attorneys for the New Normal," he characterized GenAI as:

• "The most powerful technology we've ever seen"
• "The most 'black boxy' technology we've ever seen"
• "The most approachable technology we've ever seen"

This unique combination of power, complexity, and accessibility makes GenAI different from previous legal technologies and requires new approaches to training and integration.

Wellness in Legal

The final—and perhaps most heartening—theme from Legalweek 2025 was the increased focus on wellness in the legal profession, and how AI tools might contribute positively to attorney wellbeing.

Joel Ferdinand, Co-Chairman and Co-General Counsel of Pierson Ferdinand LLP, put it plainly: "Well being is everything. It's not a buzz line... Happy lawyers are better lawyers." This sentiment was echoed by Vanessa Blum, VP Innovation at ALM, who noted that when people talk about "people, process, and technology" in the legal industry, "it's no mistake that this starts with people." As she emphasized, "It's only when our people are truly supported that process and technology can work properly in conjunction together."

While these wellness discussions were happening at Legalweek, they reflect what we're already seeing among Vincent AI users in practice. For example, in a recent case study, Jordan Couch, Partner at Palace Law, shared a powerful real-world example of how AI tools can enhance work-life balance: "The night before a trial, I needed to research a unique legal issue, file a motion, and write a new complaint. While I could have completed these tasks without Vincent AI, the tool's efficiency allowed me to spend the evening with my baby daughter instead of working." This type of story illustrates exactly the kind of wellness benefits that conference attendees were discussing—showing how AI can create meaningful improvements in lawyers' quality of life.

In a separate but equally insightful conversation about legal industry wellness, Wendy Butler Curtis, Chief Innovation Officer of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP offered a forward-looking perspective on AI's potential impact on lawyer wellbeing in a recent interview with vLex's Chief Strategy Officer, Ed Walters. This conversation, though separate from Legalweek, perfectly complements the conference's wellness discussions: "In my crystal ball, we're going to be talking a lot more about how Gen AI actually increases the satisfaction and the quality of life for legal professionals. I don't think we're talking about that enough." She reflects on the challenges of legal practice, noting that "this is a wonderful profession, and I'm grateful every day that I went to law school. But it's intense and it's demanding and it's deadline based and it's unpredictable. And this technology has the potential to really help manage some of those challenges that can make this a difficult job at times."

During the Legalweek keynote conversation with Gina Passarella, actor Rob Lowe shared this insight that resonated deeply with the legal audience: "Longevity and relevance are all about how you handle adversity and surprises." This wisdom feels particularly apt for the legal profession today, where generative AI now offers powerful tools to help lawyers face adversity and surprises in ways previously unthinkable—enabling faster research, smarter analysis, more strategic preparation, and better client service than ever before.

Coming Together as a Community

Beyond the panels and presentations, perhaps the most valuable aspect of Legalweek 2025 was the opportunity to come together as a community. For the vLex team, it was a chance to connect face-to-face with clients, partners, and colleagues, strengthening relationships that often exist primarily in the digital realm.

These personal connections remind us what legal technology is ultimately about: empowering people to do meaningful work more effectively. Whether discussing product features, industry trends, or simply sharing a meal, these moments of human connection ground our work in the real needs and experiences of legal professionals.

The conversations we had at Legalweek—about AI capabilities, ethical considerations, and the future of legal practice—will inform our development roadmap for months to come. We're grateful for the insights shared by industry leaders and the feedback offered by our users, all of which help us build better tools for the legal community.

As the legal industry continues to navigate the complex intersection of traditional practice and emerging technology, events like Legalweek provide vital opportunities to learn, share, and grow together. We're excited to continue these conversations and to keep evolving our solutions to meet the changing needs of legal professionals worldwide.

Want to see how Vincent AI is implementing these insights to help lawyers work more effectively and maintain better work-life balance? Book a demo to explore our Winter '25 release and discover how AI engineered for lawyers can transform your practice.

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Authored By

Jeff Cox