Steelman · slot B
The pyramid was always going to fall
A managing partner restructuring around AI would argue —The leverage model — a few partners atop a mountain of associates billing by the hour — was an artifact of a world where legal work scaled with human labor. That world is ending. When A&O Shearman and Harvey can deploy agentic AI across complex workflows, and when Paul Weiss has embedded these tools into everyday drafting and document analysis, you don't need the pyramid; you need a smaller, sharper team building and supervising systems. Yes, that means fewer summer associate slots and slower hiring. It also means clients stop paying first-year rates for work an agent does in seconds. The firms that restructure now — productizing expertise, selling tools alongside advice — will define the next era. The ones defending the old org chart will be acquired or dissolved.