Moderate pressure on corporate lawyers. The shape is what matters.

Lawyers are the canary that didn't die. By 2026 the legal-AI market matured fast — Harvey, Spellbook, CoCounsel, the in-house tools at every magic-circle firm — and the predictions of 2023 ("attorneys are next") didn't pan out the way the headlines wanted.

Automation is real but bounded. Document review at volume, due-diligence checklists, precedent research, contract drafting from templates: gone. The associates who used to bill for those hours don't bill for them anymore. The model is faster, cheaper, and gets the structure right.

What didn't happen: the model can't sign anything. It can't sit across from a regulator. It can't appear in court. It can't take the call where a CEO needs to be told "no, you can't do that, full stop." Liability is irreducible. Trust is irreducible. Strategy under ambiguity is irreducible.

The lawyers who lost the most were the ones who stayed mid-pyramid — too senior to do the AI-assisted work, too junior to own the relationship. Top of pyramid is fine; bottom of pyramid (now AI-augmented juniors) is fine. The middle is the squeeze. By 2030 the surviving firms will have flatter pyramids and higher per-partner profits.