> P.s. the idea that legal costs only increase because clients value the work more is a red herring. The legal market is not truly a market as the buyers at a corporate level are other lawyers who are spending other people’s money (that of the shareholders).

That's true of all corporate officers. That's why companies put in place incentive structures that align workers' goals with the company's. The idea that in-house counsel are putting the abstract interests of outside counsel ahead of their personal interests in career progression, bonuses, etc., is a very odd one.

> But, your defence of the status quo is to be expected by someone who benefits from it being that way.

This trope ignores the realities of legal billing. There are enormous cost and efficiency pressures in the legal industry. Even for billable-hour matters, clients have a "soft cap" in mind and even the top firms write off 10-20% of billings as a result. Fixed-fee arrangements and hybrid arrangements are also routine. For example, many companies have arrangements where a firm will handle all of the company's litigation in a particular area, or certain portfolios of cases, for a fixed monthly fee. If I'm going to get, say, a million dollars a month to handle a case, regardless of hours, why won't I use some "legal AI" to minimize my investment? If I'm a plaintiff's lawyer, and work entirely on contingency, or doing fixed fee divorces, why wouldn't I leverage every AI tool available?

Your explanation is plausible for the guys billing hours defending Altria from tobacco litigation. But it's laughable as applied to the majority of lawyers.