AI Adoption Field Notes

Observations for law firm leaders adopting AI within professional guardrails.

On Existential Risk, Ethical Guidelines, and Artificial Superintelligence

Summary: We take advanced AI risk seriously, including the possibility that highly capable systems may become difficult to interpret and govern. But we do not accept that uncontrollability should be treated as a settled premise. Our position is that AI safety is best addressed through disciplin...

On Judgment, AI, and What We’re Not Seeing Yet - Issue #7

A recent set of comments from a senior judge on India’s Supreme Court has been circulating, framed around a familiar claim: artificial intelligence can assist the judicial process, but it cannot replace the act of judgment itself. The reasoning is straightforward and, at face value, difficult to ...

When AI Stops Assisting and Starts Operating - Issue #6

There is a shift happening in software development that most professional service firms have not yet fully absorbed. In its most advanced form, AI is no longer just helping write software code. It is doing the entire cycle. A system takes a problem, generates a solution, tests that solution agai...

Heppner - AI chats are neither attorney work product nor attorney-client privileged communications - Issue #5

A Federal Court on AI and Privilege On February 17, 2026, Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York issued what appears to be the first federal decision directly addressing whether communications with a generative AI platform are protected by attorney-client privilege or the work prod...

AI is Altering the Standard of Care - Issue #4

In professional service firms, “standard of care” is not a theoretical concept. It is the line between competent practice and malpractice liability. It reflects what a reasonably prudent professional would do under similar circumstances, given the knowledge and tools available at the time. That f...

Judgment and Governance: The Third Layer of AI Adoption - Issue #3

Much of the confusion around AI today comes from the fact that very different kinds of work are being discussed as if they were the same thing. They are not. What is often described as “AI adoption” or “AI strategy” actually spans three distinct layers, each with its own incentives, pressures, an...

"AI Governance" Defined - Issue #2

Professional service firms are being pulled into decisions about AI long before they are given the space, language, or structure to decide intentionally. AI is not arriving as a single tool or initiative. It is arriving quietly, inside platforms, workflows, drafting processes, research habits, an...

Field Notes - Issue #1

Too many important conversations about AI are happening either too loudly, too technically, or too late. In my work with professional service firms, I keep encountering the same quiet tension:AI is already affecting how work is produced, reviewed, and delivered, but the way firms think about AI...

AI Adoption Field Notes

Observations for law firm leaders adopting AI within professional guardrails.

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