Reshaping Legal Services 2025: The one where AI was only mentioned once

I almost thought that the Reshaping Legal Services conference, held in London on 6 March 2025, was going to be the first legal conference for some time with no mention of AI. But then it was mentioned. Only once though, and not in the context of legal services.

Sophie Wales, Director of Regulatory Policy, Institute of Chartered Accountants, mentioned that they had a CPD module on AI and ethics. I will let her off with that one though.

It was good to attend a conference, for a change, where that was the limit of AI. More about getting things done than hypothesising about them.

I particularly enjoyed Dan Neidle‘s session on raising ethical standards in legal services.

I have looked back at my notes on last year’s Reshaping Legal Services conference (I didn’t blog about that one). There was a whole 20 minute session last year devoted to AI. Furthermore, a good number of other mentions of it throughout the conference. It was said then, that “the next 12 months will be huge, lots of firms will be left behind”. Interesting, that 12 months later and that is not a topic of concern 😉. If anything those 12 months have taken the shine off the AI hype when it comes to Reshaping Legal Services.

Image credits: ‘Allo ‘Allo! © BBC; image from the Reshaping Legal Services conference © the organisers (Legal Services Board and Legal Services Consumer Panel) via Bluesky (which it was good to see being used for broadcasting the conference rather than Twitter/X).

Reactions on Reshaping Legal Services 2025: The one where AI was only mentioned once

On LinkedIn the following comments have been made:-

Robert Lankester (Automating legal docs so lawyers can focus on what matters):

I stopped looking at blue-sky after the “Ferral Woman’s Society of America” became my first follower. Do I need to go back there? P.s. amen to a conference about actually getting stuff done too 👏

Me:

Yes, do go back and just block those that you would rather not have follow you. There is a big legal community on there now and you will find legal starter packs to enable you to follow many quickly and easily.

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Richard Moorhead (Professor of Law and Professional Ethics at University of Exeter):

Funnily enough, I nearly asked a question about it but thought I should keep quiet.

Me:

Just as well you did! 😅