Gilbert + Tobin CEO Sam Nickless says the law firm is fast approaching a mindset of “Why not use AI?”, a cultural shift he believes is critical for the future of legal work.
“I think we are getting there,” he said. “We are building a culture where people should not be embarrassed about bringing AI into their work. Now it’s like, ‘Do you use AI?’ Why would we provide all these tools if you’re not using AI?”
Drawing on his consulting background — he was previously a McKinsey partner — and his liking for a spreadsheet, Nickless illustrates the point with a familiar analogy.
“It’s like with legacy technology, you might have seen someone using a table in Word, and then they’re trying to sort it by moving the rows around manually — and you’re like, ‘Why wouldn’t you have just done that in Excel?’