The Great Unbundling: Can Traditional Firms Compete with AI-Native Challengers?

The legal industry faces a fundamental strategic fork: should law firms bolt AI onto existing structures, or build entirely new AI-native practices from the ground up? This panel brings together leaders from both paths—traditional firms investing heavily in AI transformation and AI-native startups building legal services around automation—to debate the tradeoffs, client implications, and long-term viability of each approach.

While AI-native firms promise better unit economics and client experience through end-to-end automation, incumbent firms offer brand trust, relationship capital, and the ability to scale innovation across existing client portfolios. Which model will prevail? Or will they serve fundamentally different markets?