Law Firm Starts Scoring Lawyers on AI. Could Your Bonus Depend on It?

A&O Shearman is tracking how its lawyers use artificial intelligence, with AI adoption now influencing performance assessments and bonuses. Could this signal a fundamental shift in how law firms reward talent?

The global law firm has introduced a dashboard measuring AI activity across its practice groups, including routine use and more advanced work such as developing AI agents and reusable workflows. According to reporting published on 11 November, the system was launched in September and initially provides anonymised data to the firm's technology team and senior business leaders.

The development forms part of A&O Shearman's ambitious US$1.1 billion AI investment programme over five years.

Under the strategy, each practice group is expected to dedicate at least 3% of its time to developing specialist AI tools and services.

A new measure of lawyer performance?

AI adoption is already being considered in performance assessments and bonus decisions, including for junior lawyers. However, the firm has indicated that dashboard scores will not directly determine individual appraisals. The scale of adoption is significant.

In September, 96% of the firm's partners and 93% of its lawyers used its AI tools, according to figures released by A&O Shearman.

The firm is also running AI training programmes for more than 700 partners.

What does this mean for legal careers?

Traditionally, lawyers have been assessed on billable hours, technical expertise, client relationships and commercial performance. AI proficiency may now become another increasingly important consideration.

For junior lawyers, this raises questions about the skills needed to progress in a changing profession.

Could the next generation of successful lawyers be judged not only on the legal work they produce, but on how effectively they use technology to deliver it?