Legora on firmwide integration, change management, and why 2026 is the year of agents

The market Down Under, Paterson said, is “incredibly competitive”, with more demand coming from Australian and New Zealander corporations and firms wanting to lead on what the technology can do.

“They’re not waiting for Europe or waiting for the Americans to get it right. I think there’s huge dynamism in this market,” she said.

Such demand in the region is why, she said, Legora is looking to hire not just sales and customer success staff, but also engineers and for technical roles. “There’s a demand to meet, which requires new resources,” she said.

Bolin, who is based in Stockholm but recently visited our shores, agreed, noting “there is real change happening here, [with] a lot of firms equally, if not more advanced, than the rest of the world”.

Firmwide integration

On the question of the extent of integration of firmwide AI in Australian practices, Bolin said it “really, really varies” between firms, with some dipping their toes in the water and others that are well advanced. Overall, however, the trend is towards firms being hyper-engaged and getting traction with products.

VIEW ALL

Paterson made the case for firmwide integration, noting you “also get the full executive buy-in”, whereby the C-suite understands why change is happening, what it means for the firm and the broader profession, and “for clients as opposed to [our] pockets”. When firmwide integration happens, she said, the “change management piece happens much faster”.

To achieve this, she went on, a top-down approach helps kickstart the process, but it still requires “the bottom up to meet it”. Bolin agreed: “When you get that full firm rollout and that buy-in and the partners and the senior leadership understand this is the value as part of driving that change, then that’s when we see the real magic happen.”

Change management

Effective change management, Paterson said, occurs when partners appreciate non-scalable activity.

“When you can break down their day-to-day and show them some ways they can get some immediate wins, or build some sort of automated workflow for them, that’s where you get that ‘unlock’ [moment] with a partner. The blast radius of getting a partner unlocked is all of their senior associates, all of their associates, all of their paralegals, all of their support staff. And so, that investment that we make in unlocking at the top means that you kind of have a cascading effect,” she said.

Firms that will continue to effectively manage such change, she continued, are those that are thinking about their clients in the equation.

“What does this mean for their client delivery, their client service? How are they, are they willing to basically disrupt how they’ve done something before, take a hit on perhaps some billable hours in order to go and take a step back, to take three steps forward?” Paterson said

Many firms will have some level of AI complacency, Paterson observed. So, practices that use AI as a competitive advantage and are willing to disrupt their service delivery are those that may thrive.

2026: The year of agents

Elsewhere, the pair discussed why this year, rather than 2025, is the year for agentic AI.

Bolin said 2025 was supposed to be the year of AI agents, “and I think it underdelivered”. However, he said, the fundamental models have gotten good enough to get over a requisite threshold for this year.

“The best way to think about what this is going to mean in the world of legal is to look at what’s happening in software engineering. There [are] so many similarities between software and legal work: both extremely text-based, large repositories, no tolerance for error, collaboration, version control. There’s a lot that we can see and learn from there. If you, as a lawyer, want to have an understanding of what’s going to happen to your career in a year or two, go and sit down and talk to a friend who’s a software engineer, and ask them how AI has impacted their work, and you’ll get a glimpse into the future. [That’s the] state of affairs in 2026. It’s going to be the year of agents,” he said.

Paterson said: “There’s been such a big shift, and there are such good general-purpose tools out there. Where we’ll see firms and corporations really get the most out of these tools will be as they integrate and pull in their own knowledge, their own IP, their own experience. Because if everybody has Legora, how then are you going to compete tomorrow?”

“I don’t think it’s enough to say you’ve just bought AI and that you might see some productivity activity games.”

“It’s now like, what are you going to do to deliver a differentiated service with it? Or how are you going to deliver, you know, an ROI to your CFO if you’re an in-house team?”

Bolin suggested that 2026 being the year of agents is “quite inevitable”, and if firms don’t embrace and understand that shift, they risk falling behind.

Adoption journeys are set to accelerate because of AI agents, he said: “Agents use natural language, and will be able say, ‘I know exactly what we’re trying to achieve here’. And, maybe in some instances, pause and say, ‘I’m actually not sure what you’re asking me. Can you elaborate on that? Are you looking for me to search the web, or do you want me to look at a particular resource?’ That agentic dialogue is really, I think, going to accelerate adoption.”