The question isn’t whether AI will transform legal practice – it already is. The question is whether Australian firms will lead or lag in that transformation, writes Clementine Fox.
Experts are increasingly warning that Australia is losing to the US, UK, and Asia in real-world AI adoption. For Australian legal professionals, this is a competitive crisis in the making, with local firms at risk of losing ground to global competitors.
But Australia isn’t falling behind in AI adoption because we lack the technology. The nation is falling behind because our workers haven’t been trained to use it.
A KPMG study in April found that half (50 per cent) of Australians use AI regularly, but only 36 per cent are willing to trust it. Additionally, the Reserve Bank of Australia reports that firms struggle to find skilled workers, including data engineers and AI specialists, to drive adoption.
The recently released National AI Plan prioritises worker development, training, and reskilling rather than imposing mandatory guardrails for high-risk AI systems. This approach acknowledges that Australia’s AI challenge is fundamentally about people, not technology.
Regulatory frameworks establish necessary standards and protections, but they cannot function effectively without skilled workers who can implement them. In July 2025, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) demanded mandatory “AI implementation agreements” requiring worker consultation before new tools are introduced, with guarantees around job security, skills development, and retraining opportunities.
These protections only work when paired with adequate training infrastructure, because workers need both safeguards and skills. The AI tools exist. The enterprise platforms are available. What’s missing is a workforce systematically trained to use them.
Take legal education as a case study. Some Australian law schools have begun integrating AI into curricula, recognising that tomorrow’s lawyers must understand these technologies. But many schools still struggle to balance teaching fundamental legal reasoning with practical AI literacy.
The result is a generation of graduates who get AI conceptually but lack the hands-on competencies required in modern practice. They can discuss the ethics of AI in seminars, but can’t deploy it effectively in client work.
This mismatch between AI education and workplace reality extends across professional sectors. Universities teach theory, but employers need practitioners who can deploy AI tools, interpret outputs critically, and integrate AI technologies into complex workflows while maintaining compliance and professional standards.
Closing the skills gap requires coordinated action across government, industry, and education to build a long-term AI skills pipeline.
Government investment in curriculum development, professional retraining programs, and incentives for business upskilling will be essential to translating policy commitments into practical outcomes. The “AI-ready workers” narrative requires substantial backing.
Industry – law firms and in-house teams alike – must move beyond ad-hoc training to structured skills development. Industry and universities must work together to build curricula that reflect practical realities, offer placement opportunities that bridge the academic-practice divide, and invest in training that goes beyond superficial familiarisation. Understanding how to use legal-grade AI tools effectively, interpret their outputs responsibly, and maintain compliance standards should be standard competencies, not optional extras.
The question isn’t whether AI will transform legal practice – it already is. The question is whether Australian firms will lead or lag in that transformation.
Done right, AI augments professional expertise rather than replacing it. Lawyers who understand how to deploy AI for research, document review, or contract analysis become more effective, not redundant. But this outcome isn’t a given. It requires deliberate, structured training that most professionals aren’t currently receiving, combined with clear frameworks that ensure responsible use.
Australia’s AI adoption gap isn’t inevitable. Our country has world-class universities, innovative businesses, and a skilled workforce. What we lack is the coordinated commitment to building a long-term AI skills pipeline and a plan for fixing the mismatch between AI academia and practical professional competencies required by lawyers and other white-collar jobs.
Addressing this challenge requires action across all three fronts. Without a coordinated effort to deliver the needed training, neither regulatory protections nor technological investments will achieve their full potential.
Clementine Fox is the Australian general manager at Luminance.
