A research program Harvard Law School · Insight Bridge × Dragonfly Thinking

AI isn't being adopted by law. It's restructuring the profession.

A living essay-and-visualization series on how artificial intelligence is reconfiguring how legal services are delivered, who delivers them, how lawyers are trained, and what professional judgment becomes — read as a system, through many lenses at once.

Project leads
The series

Seven essays, and the analysis behind them

Each reads the same transformation through a different lens — and each pairs with an interactive visualization.

The topic network — every topic cluster against the sources that argue about it Open the topic network
Series · Introduction

Series introduction

Why this series exists, what each of us brings to it, and how AI, complex decision-making, and the structure of the legal profession intersect. Start here.

Read the introduction→16 min
01Systems map of law's structural centrality
Structure

Law is the gateway drug

Law's structural position — at the center of business, connecting every function — makes it the natural entry point for AI across professional services.

Read essay→10 min
02Concentric model of Harvey's evolution
Strategy

Harvey's strategic evolution

What the most-discussed legal-AI company actually appears to be building — and why reading it as a "ChatGPT wrapper" misses the strategic thesis.

Read essay→11 min
03Director, coach, editor — modes of human–AI collaboration
Practice

Getting your hands dirty

From analyzing the system to experiencing it — what it actually feels like to work with AI agents on complex intellectual tasks, and why that gap matters.

Read essay→18 min
04The scrambled competitive map
Competition

The scrambled competitive map

AI is scrambling the competitive map so thoroughly that the old categories of incumbent and challenger no longer hold. The kinds of player on the field.

Read essay→12 min
05The four ingredients quadrant
Training

The training crisis

The four ingredients of good AI outcomes — and why the profession is quietly removing the scarcest one from the production process.

Read essay→10 min
06The pyramid transformation — firm shapes
Profession

From up or out to up and out

If AI automates the base, where does the top go? Firms moving upmarket aren't heading for unoccupied territory — and the ladder is collapsing behind them.

Read essay→11 min
Insight Bridge × Dragonfly Thinking

Dragonfly Insights

The evidence base under the series, opened. Second Chair is 1,501 curated sources on AI and the legal profession, 1949–2026, created by Anthea Roberts and David B. Wilkins as part of this project. It was structured and analyzed by Insight Bridge. We are applying analytical lenses to the corpus: topic mapping and actor mapping are published, with driver and dynamics mapping and scenario mapping in progress. The record is open to read, filter and query, including by your own agents.

1,501
Sources
369
Topic clusters
7
Lenses
Open Dragonfly Insights→