A&O Shearman lawyers ordered to sacrifice billable hours to build AI tools

Partners at A O Shearman have agreed to invest more than 5 per cent of its annual revenue over the next five years to build out its AI strategy. The magic circle firm said on Thursday it has committed $1.1bn (£816m) over five years to reflect a firm-wide step change, enabled by AI, in how legal work is designed and delivered to clients and in how the firm trains its people. As part of this strategy, each of the firm s practices will be expected to spend at least three per cent of its billable hours building specialist AI tools and services which fall within its area of law. David Wakeling, global head of AI at A O Shearman, said the firm s approach to designing AI is open and transparent and that it designs each AI solution with the client. He added: We want to have more upfront client conversations about how the work, the relationship and the economics can evolve with AI. This follows the City firm, which turned over $3.7bn (£2.8bn) in the recent financial year, be