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AI Isn’t Eliminating Legal Support. It’s Changing Who Law Firms Need to Hire.

Joi Myree Peppers | September 22, 2026
Illustration of legal professionals working together in a small law office with subtle AI tools in the workflow, representing AI and legal staffing

Ask a small law firm owner about AI, and the conversation usually lands on hiring. The question is simple. If this technology can draft, summarize, and research, does the firm still need to hire someone?

In most cases, yes. But the right hire may look different than it did five years ago.

AI is not going to wipe out legal assistants, paralegals, or legal secretaries. It will change how much of their work happens by hand. It will also change what kind of work lands on their desks. And it will change what firms should look for when they hire. That shift already shows up in the data on AI and legal staffing. Over the next decade, it will reshape how law firms build their teams.

Start with the numbers, because the headlines create a lot of noise.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted about 404,900 paralegal and legal assistant jobs in 2025. BLS expects little or no change in that number from 2025 to 2035. It names technology, including AI, as the main reason growth will stay limited. These tools make workers more productive at legal research and document preparation.

Here is the part the headlines miss. BLS still projects about 40,800 openings for paralegals and legal assistants every year over that decade. However, most of those openings will come from people who retire or move into other work.

Legal secretaries and administrative assistants face a different picture. BLS projects that group will shrink about 5% over the same period.

So legal support is not disappearing. The mix is changing. Roles centered on routine administrative tasks face more pressure. Roles centered on legal knowledge and judgment are holding steady. Firms will still need to fill them as people leave.

Quite a bit, at least in theory.

Clio’s 2024 Legal Trends Report found that 79% of legal professionals used AI in their work. The year before, that figure was 19%. Clio also estimated that AI could potentially automate up to 74% of hourly billable tasks. Those tasks include information gathering and data analysis. The estimate reached 81% for legal secretaries and administrative assistants, compared with 57% for lawyers.

Still, that number deserves care. It measures exposure. It does not predict that those tasks will vanish next year.

The Thomson Reuters Institute’s 2025 Future of Professionals research surveyed 2,275 professionals across legal, tax, accounting, and related fields. Respondents expected AI to save them about five hours a week within the next year. Thomson Reuters valued that time at roughly $19,000 per professional per year.

Five hours a week adds up. As a result, firms can run leaner over time. Each person can handle more matters because first drafts, summaries, and document reviews move faster. None of that makes the person less important. It makes the right person more valuable.

Human Judgment Is Still the Job

AI can produce a first draft. It cannot take responsibility for it.

Researchers at Stanford’s RegLab tested leading AI legal research tools. The tools still gave incorrect or misleading answers in roughly 17% to 33% of queries. And these were legal-specific tools, not general chatbots.

The profession’s ethics guidance points the same way. The ABA released Formal Opinion 512 in July 2024. It says lawyers who use generative AI must independently verify its output to an appropriate degree. The opinion also calls on firms to set clear AI policies. Supervisors must make reasonable efforts to train and supervise the lawyers and nonlawyers who use these tools.

Lawyers share the concern. In the ABA’s 2024 Artificial Intelligence TechReport, 74.7% of respondents named accuracy as a top AI concern.

That is where strong legal support professionals come in. Someone has to catch the citation that doesn’t exist or the miscalculated deadline. A trained eye spots the clause that reads fine but doesn’t fit the client. As AI takes on more routine work, review work matters more, not less.

Large firms shape most of the AI conversation. They have innovation teams, IT departments, and budgets for pilot programs. Most small and midsize firms do not.

In fact, the adoption gap is real. The ABA’s 2024 TechReport found that 30.2% of attorneys’ offices used AI-based tools. Solo practitioners came in at 17.7%, and firms with 2 to 9 attorneys at 24.1%. Firms with 500 or more attorneys reached 47.8%.

Clio’s 2025 Legal Trends for Solo and Small Law Firms report found a similar pattern. Only 8% of solo practitioners and 4% of small firms had adopted AI widely or universally. Most relied on lower-barrier tools like ChatGPT or AI-powered legal research.

Midsize firms are moving faster. Clio’s 2026 report on mid-sized firms found that 86% use AI. And 65% said AI helps them handle higher work volumes. Still, 30% reported trouble fitting new technology into existing workflows.

That last number matters. At a small or midsize firm, the managing partner often doubles as the HR department and the operations team. That same person usually picks the software, too. Nobody has time to map which tasks AI should handle and which still need a person. So when a position opens, the firm often reposts last year’s job description. That habit helps explain why some legal hires look good on paper but still don’t work out.

The Skills That Will Matter More

If the work shifts, hiring criteria should shift with it. Over the next five to ten years, these qualities will likely matter more for legal support hires.

Checking AI output is hard without knowing what right looks like. A solid grasp of procedure, deadlines, and the practice area becomes more valuable, not less.

Judgment and adaptability

After all, tools will keep changing. The strongest professionals will learn new platforms quickly and know when not to trust them. They will adjust how they work without step-by-step instructions.

Communication

When technology handles more paperwork, the human parts of the job stand out. That means talking with clients, coordinating with opposing counsel, and keeping attorneys informed. These skills resist automation, and firms often underestimate them.

Not everyone needs to be a tech expert. Still, using practice management systems, research platforms, and AI tools responsibly is becoming a baseline skill. Thomson Reuters found that 46% of professionals reported skills gaps, mostly in technology and data. For job seekers, these are now among the skills worth highlighting on a legal assistant resume.

A longer-term question sits underneath all of this. In the Thomson Reuters Institute’s 2026 Future of Professionals report, legal professionals expected a slower path to trusted judgment. They estimated early-career people will need about 1.7 more years to get there. Routine tasks once trained new paralegals and legal assistants. If AI absorbs that work, firms will need a more intentional plan for developing their next generation.

A Better First Question Than “Who Should We Hire?”

When someone leaves or the workload spikes, most firms ask one question: “Who should we hire?” Firms may increasingly need to step back and ask four questions instead:

  1. What work actually needs to be done?
  2. What part of that work requires a person?
  3. What can technology do better, faster, or more consistently?
  4. What combination of permanent, temporary, or fractional support makes sense?

The answer might still be a full-time hire. Or the firm might need a strong litigation paralegal three days a week. It might need temporary help through a heavy discovery season while it tests new tools. Weighing temp versus direct hire becomes part of the plan, not an afterthought.

Why Temporary and Fractional Support May Matter More

Workflows are changing, so locking in headcount based on last year’s workload carries risk. Temporary legal staffing and fractional support give firms room to adjust.

A firm can bring in experienced help for a surge. It can test what a role really looks like once new tools are in place. It can also add specialized skills before committing to a full-time salary. Before that commitment, it helps to understand what it really costs to hire a paralegal. For many small firms, a skilled part-time professional may fit better than a full-time generalist. Fractional legal support works especially well when the workload is real but not yet full-time.

Staffing firms face the same shift. A legal staffing firm can’t just match resumes to job descriptions anymore. A job description from two years ago may describe a role that no longer exists in that form.

Good legal recruiting now means understanding how a firm actually works. It means knowing which tools the firm uses or plans to use. It also means identifying which tasks truly need a person’s judgment. Every job order should start with those questions.

That shift is one reason specialized legal recruiters are gaining ground over generalists. Firms need recruiters who understand the work, not just the job title. For firms weighing outside help, knowing when to use a legal recruiter is a useful starting point.

The future of AI and legal staffing is not about choosing between people and technology. It’s about finding people who understand the legal work and use technology well.

Firms that treat AI as a reason to stop hiring will likely run short on judgment. Firms that ignore AI will likely run short on capacity. The firms that do well will think carefully about the work first, then hire for it.

In the end, the goal is not simply to fill seats. It is to understand who a firm actually needs in those seats.

How LawMates Can Help

LawMates is a legal workforce partner for law firms and legal employers nationwide. It helps firms build the right team for the work ahead, from attorneys to support staff. That includes legal staffing and recruiting for law firms and fractional and part-time legal support for firms that need flexibility.