Law firms give lawyers time off billing grind to test-drive AI Sara Merken David Thomas October 8, 2026 2:04 PM EDT Updated 12 hours ago The logo of law firm Ropes & Gray LLP is seen outside of their office in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 31, 2020. Oct 8 - (Billable Hours is Reuters' weekly report on lawyers and money. Please send tips or suggestions to D.Thomas@thomsonreuters.com As Ropes & Gray ramps up its use of AI, the law firm said its 1,000-plus associates and counsel can now count up to 100 hours of AI experimenting and training toward their annual billing requirements.

The move, part of a firmwide AI training initiative in place since the spring, expands on the firm's decision last year to allow first-year associates to devote up to 20% of their required billable hours– nearly 400 hours – to AI training and simulations.

All of Boston-founded Ropes' first-year associates participated in the program, which the firm found to be a "huge success," said Patrick Ryan, its director of knowledge management innovation.

A Ropes spokesperson said the firm has "invested over 35,000 associate hours to AI time this year" under the hourly-credit program.

Law firms use hourly requirements to ensure lawyers are busy, assess their productivity and allocate bonuses. Devoting a portion of them to non-client work is another sign of the legal industry's investment in AI, which firms are using to speed up legal work and streamline their business operations.

Two Ropes associates told Reuters the credit program gives them flexibility to try AI tools even when it can't be billed directly to clients.

Kevin Schoonveld, a New York-based ninth-year debt finance associate, said learning to use prompts that yield accurate results takes time that busy associates might otherwise be less willing to commit.

“When you're first playing around with these AI tools, you're investing a lot of time in it and you're not seeing a ton of efficiencies at first," he said.

Some other firms are also allowing limited billable hours credits for work using AI that’s not directly for clients.

At Akerman, lawyers since April have been able to get credit for AI-related projects that are “really contributing value” to the firm, said chairman Scott Meyers.

He said the firm posts AI assignments on an internal portal for associates to take up or propose their own. So far, associate projects have included building an AI agent to review construction contracts and testing AI research tools to document where they have produced inaccurate results, he said.

“We understand that there may be some compression in billable hours” due to AI being able to handle more work, Meyers said. But he said that alone shouldn't dictate a need for fewer associates, and the credits program helps to address associates' concerns about AI's impact on the time they're billing.

“If we need to find other ways to fill that time, I suspect it will be that combination of billable and creditable hours,” he said. As at most large firms, billable hours credits are also allocated for pro bono work.

At Ropes & Gray, the AI credits are part of a broader training and professional development program for all the firm's attorneys. Lawyers move through training modules toward applying AI to client work and are later encouraged to develop internal AI tools or processes, Ryan said.

The firm is also including AI as a topic in lawyers' annual review conversations, but not with the aim of penalizing them, said Amy Ross, the firm's chief legal talent officer.

"To the extent that we're finding people aren't using it, we want to address that too," she said.

KIRKLAND TIGHTENS LID ON FINANCES Kirkland & Ellis, the highest-grossing US law firm, said it will no longer report its annual financial results to The American Lawyer.

The firm, whose revenue topped $10 billion last year, said in a Wednesday letter to editors at the legal trade publication that "public reporting of our revenue and profits does not provide meaningful value to our clients nor adequately reflect the caliber of our firm’s legal services." It said publicizing its finances for ranking purposes "could incentivize quantitative metrics over qualitative strengths," like the quality of its legal services, according to the letter, which was viewed by Reuters.

The American Lawyer annually publishes lists of the 200 highest-grossing and most profitable law firms in the country. Kirkland, driven in part by its private equity and restructuring work, has topped the revenue rankings since 2017.

Kirkland's revenue hit $10.56 billion in 2025, while its average profits per equity partner reached $11.1 million. The firm has a tiered partnership in which a substantial number of partners do not have a traditional ownership stake. Also on Billable Hours' radar this week... AT&T's legal department has stopped paying law firms to handle many routine assignments typically done by junior lawyers, and is instead using an in-house team using AI, Reuters columnist Sara Randazzo reports AT&T's general counsel said its roster of 30 or so outside law firms could shrink in the future.

President Donald Trump’s administration is vying in federal court to allow the EEOC to keep information secret from the public about its probes last year targeting the employment practices at some major US law firms. The administration is contesting a lawsuit over access to the records and says a significant amount of information must remain confidential.

Cornell University has hired Sally Yates who served as deputy US attorney general from 2015 to 2017, for an internal investigation of how it handled a student's allegations that she was gang-raped, a case that has brought mounting scrutiny and triggered student protests at the Ivy League school.