How AI is Reshaping Business Services Roles

​AI is already beginning to change how work is carried out across law firms. Some tasks are becoming faster. Some can increasingly be automated. Existing roles are acquiring new responsibilities. And entirely new positions are beginning to emerge.

For those working across law firm business services, that understandably raises questions.

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• How could my role evolve as AI becomes more embedded in the way law firms work?

• Which skills will become more valuable?

• Will some responsibilities disappear, and what new ones might replace them?

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For firms, the questions are just as significant. What skills will teams need? Where will new capabilities sit? And how do firms develop the people they already have while recruiting for expertise that, in some cases, barely existed a few years ago?

There are no simple answers. But one point is becoming increasingly important:

AI changing the work doesn't necessarily reduce the importance of people. It may change where their value lies.

And for those working in areas such as Risk & Compliance and Knowledge, one of the things that could become increasingly valuable is human judgement.

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AI may change the task. That doesn't remove the judgement.

AI can already support work that previously required considerable human time.

Research. Document review. Summarising information. Drafting. Identifying patterns. Interrogating large amounts of data. As those capabilities improve, some of the more process-driven elements of business services roles will inevitably change.

But producing an answer and knowing whether that answer is accurate, appropriate and safe to act upon are two very different things.

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• Someone still needs to understand the context.

• Someone needs to recognise what might be missing.

• Someone needs to spot when something doesn't look quite right.

• And someone needs to be willing to challenge the output rather than accept it simply because the technology produced it.

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That distinction is particularly important within a law firm, where confidentiality, professional obligations, regulatory requirements and client interests all need to be considered.

As AI becomes more capable, good human judgement will become more valuable, not less.

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What could this mean for Risk & Compliance?

There is significant potential for AI across Risk & Compliance. Information gathering, research, due diligence, monitoring, initial reviews and identifying potential risks are all areas where technology could increasingly support teams. But Risk & Compliance isn't simply about finding information.

The difficult part is often deciding what that information means. There are grey areas. There is context. There are competing considerations. Sometimes the answer isn't simply yes or no. And sometimes something may technically be possible but still not represent the right course of action for the firm or its client. That is where experience and judgement remain critical.

There is another important development too. Risk & Compliance professionals are increasingly likely to be involved in determining how AI itself should be used within their firms. AI governance, Technology Risk, confidentiality, data, vendor assessment, policies, controls and appropriate human oversight are all becoming increasingly relevant.

Rather than competing with AI, Risk professionals are increasingly becoming part of how firms determine its safe and effective use. Understanding when its outputs can be relied upon, when they need to be challenged, and where appropriate controls and human oversight are required.

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And what about Knowledge?

Knowledge is another particularly interesting area to watch. Knowledge professionals have long been responsible for helping firms capture, organise, maintain and make effective use of their collective legal knowledge. The growth of AI arguably makes that expertise even more relevant.

AI doesn't automatically understand how a particular law firm wants its lawyers to work.

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• Which knowledge should underpin an AI-enabled process?

• Is that knowledge current and reliable?

• Which precedent should be used?

• What does a good output actually look like?

• And how can the way an experienced lawyer approaches a task be translated into a repeatable AI-enabled workflow?

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As firms move beyond simply providing access to AI tools and towards developing more sophisticated workflows, agents and AI-enabled legal services, Knowledge professionals could increasingly find themselves at the intersection of law, knowledge, technology and innovation. For Knowledge Lawyers in particular, that could create some genuinely interesting career opportunities.

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New roles are emerging too

AI isn't only changing existing business services roles. It is also contributing to the creation of new positions and career paths within law firms.

Roles such as Legal Engineer, Innovation Lawyer, AI Transformation Manager, AI Governance specialist and Legal Technology & AI Lawyer are becoming increasingly visible. At the same time, responsibility for AI is appearing within existing Knowledge, Risk, Technology, Business Development and client-facing teams.

Perhaps most interestingly, many of these positions don't fit neatly within one traditional law firm function.

A Legal Engineer, for example, may need to understand how lawyers work, how legal processes can be redesigned, how knowledge and precedents are structured, and how AI can be incorporated into practical workflows.

An Innovation Lawyer may combine legal expertise with technology, process improvement, product development and client delivery.

An AI Governance or Technology Risk professional may bring together Risk & Compliance, regulation, data, information security and an understanding of emerging technology.

And as firms increasingly combine their own technology and institutional knowledge with specialist legal AI platforms, there is likely to be greater demand for people who can connect the technology with the legal or business problem it is supposed to solve.

What is particularly interesting from a career perspective is where those people may come from. They won't necessarily all be technologists.

Knowledge Lawyers, Risk & Compliance professionals, experienced fee-earners and other business services specialists may already possess much of the legal, regulatory, process or institutional knowledge these emerging roles require.

For candidates, that could create opportunities to take an existing area of expertise in a new direction rather than starting an entirely new career.

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The opportunity may be in combining skills

There is already plenty of discussion about developing "AI skills". But perhaps AI expertise shouldn't be considered in isolation. Many of the emerging roles have one thing in common: they sit between traditional disciplines.

Increasingly, some of the most valuable skillsets will combine an understanding of AI with established specialist expertise.

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• A Risk professional who understands AI governance.

• A Knowledge Lawyer who can translate legal expertise into an AI-enabled workflow.

• A Conflicts professional who understands how technology can support an analysis but also knows when the result needs challenging.

• A Financial Crime specialist who can interrogate an automated finding rather than simply accepting it.

• A Legal Engineer who can bridge the gap between lawyers, Knowledge and Technology teams.

• Or a manager who can introduce new technology while successfully bringing people through the change.

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Knowing how to use an AI tool may eventually become commonplace. Knowing how to apply it intelligently within a specialist area could be much more valuable.

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So, what can candidates do now?

The answer isn't necessarily for everyone to learn to code or try to reinvent themselves as an AI specialist. But curiosity will matter.

Candidates can start by understanding how AI is developing within their own area of expertise and considering which parts of their work technology could support, and which still require human judgement.

Where opportunities arise, getting involved in AI pilots, working groups, innovation initiatives or transformation projects can provide valuable practical exposure.

Understanding the risks matters too. Confidentiality, accuracy, data, governance and appropriate human oversight are likely to become increasingly relevant across many business services roles.

And alongside technical understanding, there is a strong case for continuing to develop the skills that are harder to replicate:

Judgement. Critical thinking. Communication. Commercial awareness. Stakeholder management. Curiosity. And the confidence to challenge an answer when something doesn't look right.

The objective doesn't need to be competing with AI at the things AI does well. It may be much more valuable to understand how existing specialist expertise becomes stronger when combined with it.

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Law firms have a role to play too

The responsibility cannot sit solely with candidates and employees. If firms want AI-capable teams, they need to create opportunities for their people to become AI capable.

That means training and exposure to the technology. It means giving people opportunities to participate in pilots and innovation projects. And it means involving Risk & Compliance and Knowledge professionals in conversations about AI rather than treating innovation as something happening elsewhere within the firm.

Firms may also need to think differently about where they look for emerging AI capability.

Not every future Legal Engineer, Innovation professional or AI Governance specialist will arrive with that title already on their CV.

In a developing market, some of the strongest potential may already exist within Knowledge, Risk & Compliance, Technology or fee-earning teams. People who have the specialist expertise and judgement but need greater exposure to the technology.

That creates an opportunity for firms to develop as well as recruit the capabilities they are likely to need.

But there is another, potentially bigger workforce question.

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If AI does the junior work, how do juniors develop senior judgement?

This may be one of the most important questions for firms to consider.

Good judgement isn't developed simply because someone has spent a certain number of years in a role. It develops through exposure.

Through doing the work. Seeing difficult situations. Asking questions. Receiving supervision. Understanding why an experienced colleague reached a particular conclusion. And, sometimes, learning from mistakes.

Some of that experience has traditionally been gained through relatively routine work. If AI increasingly performs that work, how will the next generation develop the knowledge and judgement required to handle the complex work that remains?

The answer shouldn't be to preserve inefficient processes simply as a training exercise.

But it may mean firms need to become much more deliberate about development, supervision and giving junior professionals exposure to the reasoning behind decisions, rather than simply the process used to reach them.

AI adoption, therefore, isn't only a technology or efficiency question. It is a talent-development question too.

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The role may change. That doesn't mean its value disappears.

Nobody knows exactly how Risk, Compliance or Knowledge roles will evolve as AI becomes increasingly embedded within law firms.

Some tasks will probably disappear. Others will become quicker. Existing positions will evolve. And new roles and career paths will emerge.

But candidates don't necessarily need to view AI as something they must defend their careers against. Equally, firms shouldn't view AI purely through the lens of reducing the amount of human work required.

The bigger opportunity may lie somewhere in the middle.

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• Where is technology better?

• Where are people better?

• And what happens when the two are combined effectively?

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For candidates, that means thinking now about how their existing expertise can evolve alongside AI. For firms, it means thinking not only about the technology they want to adopt, but about the people, skills and career pathways they will need around it.

Because as AI becomes more capable, knowing when to use it will matter. Knowing when to question it may matter even more.

For candidates and firms, navigating this change won't always be straightforward.

Pembury Legal works across Risk & Compliance, Knowledge and wider law firm business services, helping candidates understand where their skills could take them next and helping clients identify the talent and capabilities they'll need as roles evolve.

As the market develops, we are increasingly seeing AI & Innovation shape the roles we work on, both through new positions being created specifically around emerging technology and through more established business services roles taking on greater responsibility for AI, innovation, transformation and adoption.

This means understanding not just the technology, but how it is changing the skills firms need, the responsibilities sitting within existing teams and the new career paths beginning to emerge.

Whether you're considering how these developments could shape your career, or thinking about the skills and people your firm will need as AI adoption continues, Adam Shookhye and Louise Grimes would be very happy to have a conversation.

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