BARBRI Research: Law Firms Grading Their Own AI Rollouts a C — No Competency Framework Built

BARBRI's August 6 research — based on interviews with 10 leaders across 9 law firms (Am Law 100 to tech-enabled models outside the traditional firm structure) — found that no participating firm has built the AI competency framework its associate pipeline needs. Firms know who activated AI tools, but almost none can track who changed the way they work. Collaboration between Innovation and L&D functions is improving but described as fragile, with a governance structure that leaves Innovation, L&D, and KM teams "either elbowing for the same territory or nobody owns it at all." The structural barrier cited most consistently: the billable hour, which gives firms no economic incentive to measure the efficiency gains AI produces. For legal tech operators selling AI adoption, training, or change management products, this is both market intelligence and a sales thesis: firms are deploying tools faster than they can measure behavior change, and the internal ownership gap creates demand for external measurement, enablement, and governance infrastructure.