Client Relationships Still a Contact Sport — Law.com

Law.com published on August 10 a piece with a thesis that should be pinned in every BD team's working document: client relationships remain "a contact sport," and AI's value lies in giving lawyers back the one resource business development has always required and partners have never had enough of — time and attention to understand a client's world. The article's framing is significant because it arrives in the context of a market where the primary use case for recovered AI time remains internal (research, drafting, summarisation) rather than external (client service, proactive outreach, relationship development). For BD leads, the argument is both a call to action and a measurement framework: if AI has been deployed for 12 months and the relationship conversation with key clients has not materially changed — if the frequency, depth, or proactivity of partner contact has not shifted — the investment has not yet produced client intelligence value. The firms winning new matters in 2026 are those that converted AI-freed time into "I noticed this before you did" conversations, not those that processed more documents at lower cost.