EXPERIENCED ADVISORY FOR LAW FIRM LEADERSHIP
AI is changing the law firm,
not just the work.
I advise law-firm leaders on how AI is changing the operation, economics, risk, professional responsibilities, competitive position, and leadership of the firm, and the decisions that follow.
Rex C. Anderson - 30-year attorney, former managing partner, and systems builder
Or call me directly: (602) 741-5341
The questions are larger than which AI tool to buy.
AI is beginning to affect decisions throughout the law firm. Some are technical. Many are not.
They reach into how the firm operates, how lawyers spend their time, how work is priced, what professional obligations attach to new workflows, what clients expect, and what leadership chooses to standardize, supervise, or leave alone.
My advisory work is concentrated at that intersection.
Operations
Workflow, staffing, systems, knowledge base, service delivery, and where technology removes friction or unintentionally creates more of it.
Economics
Billing, margins, leverage, lawyer capacity, partner time, technology spending, and how AI changes the economics of producing legal work.
Risk
Confidentiality, vendor exposure, information handling, reliability, reputational consequences, and the new failure modes introduced by AI systems.
Professional Responsibilities
Competence, supervision, legal ethics, client duties, verification, professional judgment, and obligations to courts and tribunals.
Competitive Position
Changing client expectations, alternative delivery models, differentiation, speed, price pressure, and what happens as AI capability becomes ordinary.
Leadership
What the firm should permit, prohibit, fund, stop, standardize, supervise, measure, or reconsider as technology changes.
For law firms when AI becomes a leadership question.
For law firms seeking experienced outside perspective on AI adoption, but are not ready to hire a full-time Chief AI Officer or divert partner time away from client work.
I work directly with managing partners to frame consequential technology decisions, examine the tradeoffs, and determine what deserves action.
Experience on both sides of the decision.
Over a 30-year legal career, I practiced law inside a mid-size law firm, served as its managing partner, and later spent 15 years building and running my own solo law practice. I understand the institutional pressures of a law firm because I have managed them, and the practical realities of doing the work because I have lived those too.
My background in technology is equally hands-on. My pre-law career included a decade as a programmer and systems analyst. I have designed and built software for document generation workflows and case management for my law practice. Today I design and build AI-powered applications, agentic systems, personal knowledge retrieval systems.
A law firm should not have to explain the practice of law to its technology advisor - or explain the technology to someone who understands only law.
My work sits between those two worlds,
grounded in decades of experience in both.
Experienced independent judgment and advice,
not another technology vendor
I do not sell software, represent an AI platform, or arrive with a predetermined technology answer.
My role is to help firm leadership understand what is changing, distinguish consequential issues from noise, evaluate options in the context of the firm, and make decisions that account for both technological capability and the realities of legal practice.
That may involve a workflow, a policy, a vendor decision, an internal AI capability, a billing question, a professional responsibility issue, or broader policy questions about how the firm should adapt and respond as the technology evolves.
I begin with the specific decision or challenge your firm actually faces,
rather than forcing it into a predetermined consulting package.
The technology will keep changing.
The leadership responsibility will not.
Models will improve. Products will appear, disappear, or be absorbed into broader AI platforms.
Capabilities that seem extraordinary today will become ordinary expectations.
The durable question for law firm leadership is not whether a particular tool is impressive. It is whether the change improves the firm, can be responsibly incorporated into professional work, and remains worth doing once the novelty wears off.
Current Thinking
I write about the practical consequences of AI for law firm leadership, including operations, economics, professional responsibility, risk, client expectations, and the changing structure of legal work.
Subscribe to follow my thinking on AI, technology, and law-firm leadership.
You'll receive a short weekly notice when the new AI Adoption Intelligence Brief is published. This is a weekly collection and commentary on those few AI developments that may actually matter to law-firm management.
You’ll also receive the occasional AI Adoption Field Note, where I explore a single issue in greater depth.
AI Adoption Intelligence Brief for Law Firm Leadership
Weekly publication of technology news relevant to law firm leadership, plus my commentary and advice.
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Run your own practice?
I also maintain a separate advisory path for established solo attorneys who want practical help identifying where AI can save them time, improve their practice, or remove process friction without turning themselves into technologists.
Click To Schedule a 20-minute ConversationYour next step: Start with a conversation
If AI or another consequential technology is creating a decision your firm needs to think through, a short conversation is usually enough to determine whether my perspective would be useful.
Prefer to speak directly?
Rex C. Anderson
direct: (602) 741-5341
email: Rex@DesertSage.ai