They don't drive it. They don't manage it. They don't control it. They let it control them. And then one day, they look up and realize discovery closed last week, the client is asking why nobody has taken the key depo, the adjuster wants a status report "by the end of the day," and the partner is asking the question that makes your stomach drop: "Where are we on this file?"
A year or so ago, most legal departments were still testing. AI pilots. Workflow trials. Small process experiments. Everyone was learning cautiously. The stakes were relatively low, and the work was labeled "innovation," which made imperfection forgivable. Then something shifted. Those same pilots became part of day-to-day delivery, and the business started relying on them. Sometimes intentionally, because early results looked good.
A student-led coalition has gathered more than 2,600 signatures from law students, legal academics, and law student organizations across 109 law schools calling on Congress to pass the Federal Officer Accountability Act. As the Department of Homeland Security disappears suspected migrants without due process, arbitrarily harasses citizens, and point blank kills innocent people on camera, a shocked public has learned what lawyers have talked about for years: the government has stacked the immunity deck to functionally shield law enforcement from accountability.