人工智能目前已被英国和爱尔兰近90%的法律专业人士使用，这正将法律行业最古老的惯例之一——计时收费——置于显微镜下审视。
Artificial intelligence is now used by almost 90% of legal professionals in the U.K. and Ireland, and it's putting one of the profession's oldest conventions — the billable hour — under the microscope.
这是法律软件公司Clio发布的《2026年英国和爱尔兰法律洞察报告》的发现。报告显示，在使用AI的律所中，近80%表示无需增加资源即可处理更多工作，而超过70%表示通过吸收原本由辅助人员完成的行政工作降低了成本。
That's according to legal software company Clio's U.K. & Ireland Legal Insights Report 2026 It found that among firms using AI, almost 80% said they can handle more work without increasing resources, while over 70% said it cut costs by absorbing administrative work once done by support staff.
因此，AI正在挑战法律职业赖以建立的某些假设，迫使律所重新评估律师如何分配时间、如何收费以及新律师如何学习业务。"你不能为耗时16秒的事情收取16小时的费用" 尼克·罗尔斯-戴维斯 Lexolent 英国一些最大型的律所已开始付诸实践。A&O Shearman已与法律AI公司Harvey合作，开发用于审查贷款协议和分析监管文件等任务的人工智能代理，据称可在几分钟内完成此前需耗时数小时的工作。
As a result, AI is challenging some of the assumptions on which the legal profession was built, forcing firms to reevaluate how their lawyers spend their time, how they charge for it and how new lawyers learn the ropes. You can't charge 16 hours for something that takes 16 seconds Nick Rowles-Davies Lexolent Some of the U.K.'s biggest firms are already putting this into practice. A&O Shearman has worked with legal AI company Harvey to develop artificial intelligence agents for tasks, including reviewing loan agreements and analyzing regulatory filings, which it says can complete in minutes work that previously took several hours.
与此同时，Slaughter and May今年已在所有业务领域推广Harvey，包括用于监管研究和文件分析。
Slaughter and May, meanwhile, has rolled out Harvey across all practice areas this year, including for regulatory research and document analysis.
计时收费面临压力 计时收费是许多律所商业模式的核心，但当AI大幅减少律师筛选和起草文件的时间时，经济账便不再那么简单算计。"你不能为耗时16秒的事情收取16小时的费用"，总部设在伦敦和迪拜的法律融资基金Lexolent创始人兼首席执行官尼克·罗尔斯-戴维斯对CNBC表示。AI打破了求职申请流程。什么将取而代之？
Billable hour pressure The billable hour is central to the business model of many law firms, but when AI significantly reduces the time lawyers spend sifting through and drafting documents, the economics are no longer so straightforward. "You can't charge 16 hours for something that takes 16 seconds," Nick Rowles-Davies, founder and CEO of legal finance fund Lexolent, based in London and Dubai, told CNBC. AI broke the job application. What replaces it?
初级职位面临震荡，因AI消灭了杂务 Meta的Muse代理正攻击经济中最赚钱的薄弱环节 蓝领AI就业市场正在蓬勃发展。数据中心反弹会让它破灭吗？
Entry-level roles are facing a shake-up as AI kills the grunt work Meta's Muse agent is attacking one of the economy's most profitable weak spots The blue-collar AI job market is booming. Will data center backlash make it go bust?
根据Clio的报告，约五分之一广泛采用AI的律所表示难以达成计费工时目标。根据德勤的一项调查，全球资深法律领导者预计，未来两到三年内，按小时计费的工作占比将从72%下降至44%。Rowles-Davies表示，常规工作受冲击最大。“如果你处理的是标准文件，只是填充细节，那么这显然是一个自动化过程。”但他补充道，复杂的法律工作仍需要人类判断，特别是在解读AI输出和为客户确定正确策略时。
About one in five firms that have widely adopted AI report difficulty meeting billable-hour targets, according to Clio's report. Globally, senior legal leaders expect the share of work charged by the hour to fall from 72% to 44% over the next two to three years, according to a Deloitte survey Routine work is the most exposed, Rowles-Davies said. "If you've got standard documents and you're just putting in detail, then clearly that's an automatic process." But complex legal work still requires human judgment, he added, particularly when interpreting AI output and determining the right strategy for a client.
律师们告诉我们，他们的工作日正在变得更好 Joshua Lenon Clio律师还需要具备识别AI幻觉的能力。“已经发生很多案例，律师因向法庭提交引用不存在案例的法律文书而受到制裁，”Rowles-Davies说。
Lawyers [are] telling us that their day is getting better Joshua Lenon Clio Lawyers also need to be able to spot AI hallucinations. "There have been a lot of cases where lawyers have been sanctioned for producing briefs before a court with cases that don't exist," Rowles-Davies said.
在英国米德尔斯堡蒂赛德大学领导未来工作研究部的Mansoor Soomro告诉CNBC，计费工时制当然不会一夜之间消失，但越来越难以证明其合理性。
Mansoor Soomro, who leads the Future of Work Research Unit at Teesside University in Middlesbrough, England, told CNBC the billable hour is certainly not disappearing overnight, but it is getting harder to justify.
Soomro补充道，AI也在改变律师学习业务的方式，因为重复性任务传统上帮助初级律师掌握法律的基础构建块。审阅数百份文件教会他们什么重要，起草合同磨练他们的起草技能，研究数十个案例帮助他们培养法律推理能力。
Junior lawyer training AI is also changing how lawyers learn their trade, Soomro added, as repetitive tasks traditionally helped junior lawyers learn the building blocks of law. Reviewing hundreds of documents taught them what matters, writing up contracts honed their drafting skills and researching dozens of cases helped them develop legal reasoning, he added.
随着AI承担更多此类工作，律所需要有意识地替代这些学习机会，总部位于伦敦的Harvey公司EMEA负责人Jorge Bestard表示。“更快生成初稿并不自动意味着更快获得胜任能力，”他告诉CNBC。
As AI takes on more of that work, firms will need to be deliberate about replacing those learning opportunities, according to London-based Jorge Bestard, head of EMEA at Harvey. "A faster route to a draft does not automatically mean a faster route to competence," he told CNBC.
A&O Shearman 更看重“好奇心与企业家精神”，该所总部位于伦敦的法律人才负责人 Francesca Bennetts 表示。她告诉 CNBC，该所还在开辟法律工程、产品与 AI 交付等职业路径，“这些在几年前几乎不存在”。
A&O Shearman is placing more value on "curiosity and entrepreneurship," said Francesca Bennetts, the firm's London-based head of legal talent. It is also building career paths in legal engineering, product and AI delivery that "barely existed a few years ago," she told CNBC.
Bennetts 说：“培养卓越律师的需求不会消失。他们是未来的合伙人和专家。” Soomro 预计，判断力在该行业将变得“极不成比例地宝贵”，律师将花费更多时间核查和质疑 AI 的输出，并解读其对客户的意义。
"The need to develop exceptional lawyers doesn't go away," Bennetts said. "They are the partners and experts of the future." Soomro expects judgment to become "disproportionately valuable" in the sector, with lawyers spending more time checking and challenging AI's output and interpreting what it means for a client.
他说：“因此，未来可能不属于在某一狭窄领域最博学的律师，而属于懂得如何关联多个领域以解决复杂客户问题的律师。”
"The future may therefore not belong to the lawyer who knows the most about one narrow area, but to the lawyer who knows how to connect multiple areas to solve a complex client problem," he said.
AI 与工作量 AI 带来的效率提升最终是否能改善律师的工作生活，可能取决于律所如何利用节省下来的时间。Clio 的报告发现，51% 的法律从业者在晚上工作，但只有 32% 愿意这样做；22% 在周末工作，而仅有 11% 会主动选择这样做。Clio 总部位于纽约的驻所律师 Joshua Lenon 认为，部分律师已开始受益。
AI and workloads Whether AI efficiencies ultimately make lawyers' working lives better may depend on what firms do with the time they get back. Clio's report found that 51% of legal professionals work evenings, but only 32% want to, while 22% work weekends compared with 11% who would choose to. Joshua Lenon, Clio's New York-based lawyer-in-residence, believes some lawyers are already seeing the benefits.
Lenon 告诉 CNBC：“律师们告诉我们，他们的日子过得更好了。” 随着 AI 变得更普遍，“人们真正在审视这些工具，并说：‘这让工作变得更好。’”
"Lawyers [are] telling us that their day is getting better," Lenon told CNBC, as AI becomes more commonplace. "People are really looking at these tools and saying, 'This is making work better.'"