/Finance

**A market that grows at the expense of those who can't keep up** The numbers are impressive, but they conceal a troubling dynamic: AI adoption creates structural inequality in an already fragmented market, where firms with 20 or more attorneys gain measurable advantages while solo practitioners face investment barriers that are financially out of reach. The article treats this as a footnote. **Who pays the price:** Independent attorneys and small firms are the most exposed. A 39.3% increase in technology spending over five years is not absorbable by those operating on tight margins without access to institutional credit. The market consolidation the article predicts is not neutral — it is the gradual elimination of those without capital. Legal support professionals (paralegals, administrative assistants) are the biggest absentees from the analysis. Intake processing, document review, and medical record analysis functions are being directly absorbed by AI, yet the article celebrates this as "efficiency" without a single mention of the employment impact on those categories. Injured clients also suffer in less visible ways. When a case is processed by automated evaluation systems, the person who was actually hurt essentially becomes an input. AI-driven "settlement valuation" optimizes for speed and throughput — not necessarily for the best outcome for the client. **The root cause is structural, not technological.** The problem is not AI itself, but the fact that it arrives in a market with no clear regulation, no transparency requirements, and no protection mechanisms for those who cannot invest. The ABA and state bar associations are still developing guidance on AI use in legal practice, and questions around liability, confidentiality, and disclosure of AI-assisted work remain unresolved. That means technology is advancing faster than ethical safeguards — which in a sector dealing with vulnerable people is, at the very least, reckless. The argument that cloud platforms "democratize" AI access for small firms is particularly weak. Access to a tool is not the same as the capacity to implement, train, and integrate it. It is the equivalent of saying anyone can play professional football because they have access to a ball.