‘This study examines the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in small and solo law firms, a segment often overlooked in research. Integrating scholarship on AI in legal practice with social science theories of digital inequalities, we investigate how differences in attitudes, access, skills and social demographics shape lawyers’ willingness to use, learn about, and pay for AI services. Using novel survey data from 644 Dutch lawyers in small and solo practices, conducting regression analyses, our results show that willingness to engage with AI is strongly influenced by positive and negative attitudes toward AI, organizational access to AI tools, and perceived AI skills. The three dimensions of access (attitudinal, material, and skills-based) are also interrelated. The findings temper claims about widespread legal AI adoption and underscore the relevance of a lack of AI skills as a potential barrier in small legal practice. Slow-paced AI adoption suggests growing fragmentation in the legal profession, which is important to include in the current academic, public and professional debate on legal AI.’
Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09695958.2026.2710632
