Law firms are getting the AI diagnosis wrong. They assume the problem is the technology, when the real obstacle is culture, confidence and case management. That was the central argument Sarah Walton, Managing Partner at Weightmans, brought to LegalTechTalk 2026 in a session titled “Carrots, Sticks and Culture Change.”
On the theme of “Evolution & Revolution: Leading Legal Teams Through Transformation”, a panel titled “Carrots, Sticks and Culture Change” discussed apprehensions of law firms in the use of new technology like AI. The fear is about data security, confidentiality, and the risk of error in front of clients. The panel was moderated by Dr. Catriona Wolfenden, Director of Product and Innovation & Partner, Weightmans, and Ms. Sarah Walton, Managing Partner, Weightmans, was the speaker.
Commencing the discussion, Dr. Catriona Wolfenden underscored that fear was the overarching theme in regulating services lately, as with the advent of AI, people did not wish to be left behind or become irrelevant. However, she remarked, that navigating innovation was not new for lawyers.
AI Adoption Is About Culture, Not Technology
Ms. Sarah Walton argued that law firms often get the diagnosis wrong when it comes to incorporating new tech. They incorrectly assume that the concern lies with the tech, but it’s about culture and case management. She added that, contrary to popular belief, resistance is not necessarily caused by a lack of motivation and adoption, but rather it often stems from a lack of confidence. She suggested that if firms gave their employees tools to cope with change, the challenge might not be that difficult.
“Let’s be honest, getting lawyers to change, it’s really difficult.”
As a leader, she underscored the importance of evolving the culture, getting people used to the culture of constant change, and creating conditions where people can work. This would allow people to confidently and safely use the AI tools in making the legal business more efficient.
She added that the constant question for leadership should be “what is the problem we’re trying to solve?” Rather than purchasing every emerging AI product, she argued that firms should first identify genuine business challenges before selecting technological solutions.
Law Firms Fear AI
Ms. Walton acknowledged that anxiety surrounding AI was entirely rational. Generative AI was at the top of every law firm’s leadership agenda because it presents multiple simultaneous risks, such as costs of AI Tools, confidentiality concerns by clients, quality of legal advice, professional indemnity insurance, and the possibility of being held in contempt of court as lawyers remain personally accountable for everything they submit to courts.
She noted that regulators were paying close attention to AI governance, making compliance and supervision increasingly important. This was why law firms could not experiment with AI tools the same way as a startup, as they were heavily regulated.
Ms. Walton further highlighted that lawyers are professionally trained to be risk-averse, which makes them anticipate worst-case scenarios. Such catastrophic thinking, along with the anxieties brought forth by AI, created an organizational paralysis. She further expressed concern about the senior lawyers in leadership who did not fully grasp AI and had to advocate for AI use.
“Lawyers catastrophize. We’re trained to be risk-averse. We’re trained to find a problem. They worry about their jobs, their teams, and their relevance.”
She remarked that the thing that law firms should fear is the race to incorporate AI tools without knowing what problem they are solving with them.
Concerns with AI use
Ms. Walton also warned against the persuasive nature of AI-generated content. She explained that AI responses often appeared fluent, confident, authoritative, and highly plausible, which could be difficult to interrogate. This was false confidence of not just the AI Tool, but also probably the junior lawyer utilizing it. She compared AI research to earlier generations of lawyers relying on Google or Wikipedia.
She underscored the new challenges for oversight of juniors and trainees as supervisors now had to verify information sources, AI hallucinations, etc.
Client Trust
Ms. Walton also discussed the issue of client trust, as clients still wanted the assurance of legal advice being reliable and that their data was not being mixed with other client data.
Overcoming Paralysis
Reiterating that often the aversion to AI was linked to fear or delay, she explained that lawyers often waited for an AI tool to be 100% accurate or blamed it for its flaws to avoid adoption.
“Actually, it’s not the tool, it’s the supervision, it’s the training, it’s the governance, it’s the guardrails.”
She also expressed concern regarding the secret and unauthorized use of AI inside law firms by employees if the firms did not provide access. This posed risks such as exposure of sensitive client data if it was fed into AI models like ChatGPT, a publicly available AI tool rather than a private tool of the firm.
Ms. Walton argued that firms should provide secure enterprise solutions supported by governance and guardrails rather than attempting to prohibit AI entirely.
“If we don’t start to use this tech in our business, we don’t put governance and guardrails down, it will go underground.”
Navigating Use of AI
Responding to a question about her journey with AI, Ms. Walton shared that she began by using some of the publicly available tools for personal use, such as planning vacations, organizing holidays, researching events in other cities, refining her sentences, asking about wardrobe choices, etc. These simple experiences helped her understand both the strengths and limitations of AI.
Her advice to new users who have limited time was to determine what problem they were trying to solve by using a said AI tool. The user had to be curious, know what questions to ask, and attempt to ascertain the strengths and weaknesses. Speaking from her experience as a corporate lawyer, Ms. Walton explained that AI performs particularly well in corporate law and commercial law or those areas of law where legal principles are well established.
She illustrated that AI tools were good at tasks like contract summaries, due diligence exercises, disclosures, and redisclosures. However, there were limitations in using them for complex things like international litigation. Thus, she suggested that if a user had an hour to use an AI tool, they should not try to be a specialist and just be curious enough to figure out the scope of its use for their work.
“I don’t want you to be a tech expert, I want you to be curious, I want you to know a bit more, I want you to know what you can do, what you can’t do, be practical, where can it help us, be really clear when not to use it.”
Furthermore, she emphasized that the key was supervision and accountability, as AI tools were not a fix-all solution. “The accountability always comes back to the human, the lawyer.”
She cited recent court decisions that demonstrated that responsibility could not be transferred to AI systems. They could merely be used for efficiency, and lawyers must continue to supervise outputs as regulatory obligations remained unchanged, regardless of technological advances.
This, she reiterated, depended on organizational culture. Law firms must become open to change and comfortable with experimentation.
Incentives for Encouraging AI Use
Discussing behavioural incentives, Ms. Walton cautioned against both extremes, i.e., both sticks (punitive measures) and carrots (simplistic usage targets). If firms reward prompt volume alone, employees may generate unnecessary AI interactions simply to meet targets. Instead, she suggested that firms should focus on:
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Access,
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Governance and Supervision,
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Guardrails,
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Confidence-building,
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Practical demonstrations of value.
Thus, she stated that she would never use the stick, and even with carrots, she stressed cautious behaviour building.
Leadership Signals That Drive Adoption
Ms. Walton argued that leadership should set the tone for positive AI adoption and openly demonstrate their own AI usage rather than treating it as a hobby. She believed leaders must communicate that:
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AI is a legitimate professional tool, and there is no shame in using it
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Responsible usage is encouraged
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Experimentation is acceptable
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Human accountability remains essential
In conclusion, she predicted that though lawyers were averse to change, the legal sector would experience unprecedented transformation over the next five years. Beyond technology, law firms will face private equity investment, alternative business structures, and geopolitical pressures. In this environment, the role of leadership is no longer simply managing legal practice but creating cultures where people no longer fear change.
“The only constant in our businesses now is change.”
The discussion concluded with a round of questions and answers with the audience members.
