It’s a long list – here’s the first 10
As 2026 begins, The National Law Review surveyed 85 legal professionals across legal practice, academia, and the legal technology sector to assess how AI is expected to shape the profession in the year ahead. This year’s survey builds on The National Law Review’s prior annual predictions, including its 2025 edition.
To ground this year’s inquiry, respondents were first asked a series of baseline questions addressing four core issues: the likelihood of near-term artificial general intelligence (AGI), the potential replacement of entry-level lawyers, appropriate disciplinary responses to fabricated AI-generated filings, and whether U.S. law schools are adequately preparing students for an AI-enabled practice.
SURVEY OVERVIEW
The survey responses reflect a strong consensus that AGI will not be achieved in 2026, with 77.4% of respondents answering in the negative. Respondents also largely rejected the view that AI will replace entry-level lawyers within the next five years, with 58.3% answering in the negative. Only 20.2% believed replacement is likely, while 13.1% were unsure, reflecting skepticism about near-term displacement despite rapid advances in legal AI.
Survey responses also reflect a clear view that law schools are not keeping pace with preparing students for modern technology, as 84% of respondents identified “significant gaps” or outright inadequacy in educating law students on technology.
By contrast, respondents were more divided on whether lawyers who submit fabricated, AI-generated citations or filings should be disbarred, with 48.1% opposing disbarment and 19.5% supporting it, reflecting a lack of consensus on whether discipline should escalate beyond the more commonplace monetary penalties and state bar discipline referrals to date.
(View Full Survey Questions and Results)
Editor’s Note on Survey Methodology and Limitations
The survey respondents were drawn from the editor’s professional network and do not represent an even or randomized cross-section of the legal profession. Nor do the survey respondents represent an even or randomized cross-section across different legal roles (e.g., academia, law firms, in-house legal departments, etc.). As a result, these survey results should not be treated as statistically reliable indicators of broader sentiment across the legal industry. Respondents, on average, have significantly greater exposure to, and proficiency with, artificial intelligence than the typical practicing lawyer. Eighty-four respondents participated in the survey portion. Responses to the first two questions were required; later questions were optional, and percentages may not total 100 percent due to rounding. These material limitations should be kept firmly in mind before drawing conclusions or making representations based on the survey results.
PREDICTIONS FOR 2026
Respondents were asked to look ahead and share their predictions for 2026, as well as what they believe will be the most surprising developments in the year to come. The 85 responses, plus the author’s predictions, are presented in full, offering an unfiltered view into how leaders across the legal and legal technology communities expect the AI landscape to evolve.
Predictions from The National Law Review’s Editor-in-Chief Oliver Roberts
Oliver’s Prediction 1: Courts Will Adopt a Mandatory “Hyperlink Rule” to Combat the Epidemic of Lawyers Filing AI-Hallucinated Authorities
The number of documented cases in which lawyers have filed pleadings containing fabricated legal authorities continues to grow, now exceeding 729 reported instances. In response, courts are likely to adopt a more effective prophylactic mechanism: a mandatory Hyperlink Rule requiring every cited judicial opinion, statute, or regulation to be hyperlinked to a reputable legal research database or official government repository, such as Westlaw, Lexis, Bloomberg Law, or an official court or agency website.
To date, courts have attempted to address AI-hallucinated filings through standing orders and local rules mandating AI disclosures or certifications. These measures, however, largely duplicate existing obligations under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11, which already requires attorneys to ensure the accuracy of all filings. Courts have also relied on sanctions, but the persistence of more than 729 documented incidents suggests that their deterrent effect, standing alone, may be limited.
Absent more effective alternatives, courts may adopt a rule that affirmatively compels verification at the point of filing. A mandatory Hyperlink Rule does precisely that. As explained in my proposal introducing the Hyperlink Rule, the approach is self-executing, technologically neutral, and imposes minimal burden on counsel while materially conserving judicial resources. Most importantly, it converts existing Rule 11 obligations from a back-end enforcement mechanism into a front-end control that prevents nonexistent authorities from entering the judicial record.
Oliver’s Prediction 2: Emergence of Universal Basic Income in National Political Debate Due to AI Layoffs
By late 2026, as candidates begin to declare for the 2028 presidential election, I expect at least one major-party candidate to openly advocate for Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a direct response to purported AI-related job losses. That endorsement would effectively move UBI from the political periphery into sustained national debate.
Whether AI is, in fact, the primary driver of recent mass layoffs remains contested. Some companies have explicitly attributed workforce reductions to AI-driven automation, while others, including Amazon, have been less explicit in identifying AI as the root cause. From a business perspective, attributing layoffs to efficiency gains from AI may offer a more favorable narrative to investors than acknowledging broader economic or operational miscalculations.
The causal relationship between AI adoption and mass layoffs is therefore far from settled. That uncertainty, however, is unlikely to constrain political messaging. Politicians are already framing AI-related job displacement as an emerging economic threat. Some politicians will assert that UBI directly addresses concerns over job insecurity and technological disruption by guaranteeing baseline income irrespective of employment status.
UBI previously entered the national conversation during the 2020 election cycle, most prominently through Democratic candidate Andrew Yang. As AI-driven workforce narratives continue to gain traction, UBI is likely to reemerge as a central policy proposal in the lead-up to the 2028 election.
Oliver’s Prediction 3: Escalating China-U.S. Tensions Over Taiwan May Drive Congressional Acceptance of Federal Preemption of State AI Laws
As Chinese ambitions toward Taiwan intensify, Congress may be forced in 2026 to reconsider its longstanding resistance to federal preemption of state AI regulations.
On New Year’s Eve, Chinese President Xi Jinping again reiterated China’s objective of annexing Taiwan, a self-governed democracy whose strategic importance to the U.S. extends beyond regional security. Taiwan is the center of advanced semiconductor manufacturing, and continued U.S. leadership in AI depends on reliable access to Taiwan-manufactured chips. Chinese aggression toward Taiwan, and any resulting disruption to Taiwan’s manufacturing capabilities, would have direct and material effects on U.S. AI development and deployment, implicating core national security interests.
As Chinese pressure on Taiwan increases, AI development is likely to be viewed less as a consumer protection issue and more as a matter of national security and industrial capacity. That reframing carries significant legal consequences. State regulation of foundational AI models and of the infrastructure that supports them (including data centers, advanced chip manufacturing, and large-scale compute deployment) will increasingly be seen as strategic liabilities rather than legitimate exercises of state power.
In this environment, Congress will likely acquiesce to federal preemption of state AI laws—but with a compromise. States will retain authority over downstream, consumer-facing AI applications and sector-specific uses, while regulation at the model layer consolidates at the federal level.
Oliver’s Prediction 4: Early Quantum Computing Experiments in Legal Technology
In 2026, I expect the first legal technology company to explore quantum computing on a pilot basis to ascertain viable applications in the legal field.
Quantum computing remains economically and technically immature relative to large language models. Its integration into legal practice will therefore be slower and more constrained. However, recent breakthroughs suggest that commercially viable use cases are beginning to emerge, and legal tech will test them early, even if only at the margins.
This experimentation will receive far less attention than LLM adoption, but quantum computing will matter more in the long run and eventually be a far more transformative technology.
Predictions from Legal Practice, Academia, and Technology
Bridget McCormack | President and CEO, American Arbitration Association
2026 Prediction: 2026 is the year parties will start choosing AI as the decision-maker for defined categories of disputes. For the first time, parties will opt in to governed, auditable AI decision systems for some disputes because they can show their work and deliver fast, transparent, low-cost resolutions. Companies will begin using AI neutrals as a first step in their dispute processes or for specific slices of their portfolios where efficiency and neutrality matter most. Humans will still design, oversee, and audit the systems, but 2026 is the year parties stop asking whether AI can decide disputes, will recognize that it can increasingly help parties resolve for better, and start choosing it when it makes sense.
Biggest Surprise 2026: The biggest surprise in legal AI in 2026 will be the pace of change. As stakeholders grow trust in AI systems across their lives, they will likewise grow trust in AI systems that scale legal work. When governed, auditable platforms can show stakeholders their legal and dispute resolution work, trust will accelerate.
Allison Goddard | U.S. Magistrate Judge, Southern District of California
2026 Prediction: AI will become the hot topic for CLE programs, and state bar associations will consider adopting a “tech” speciality requirement if they don’t have one already. Lawyers who cite AI hallucinations in briefs should attend an AI-focused CLE program ASAP after the hallucination is detected to demonstrate they are taking responsibility for the error. Lawyers who “double down” on the error (yes, lawyers have actually cited AI hallucinations in their response to OSCs re sanctions for citing to AI hallucinations) will face very tough sanctions.
Biggest Surprise 2026: The Advisory Committee on Civil Rules will propose a new and separate rule addressing sanctions for citing to AI hallucinations in court filings.
Kevin Werbach | Liem Sioe Liong/First Pacific Company Professor, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
2026 Prediction: Best of times, worst of times. Even though it will be the time that AI agents actually start driving significant productivity benefits for many businesses and users, 2026 will be the trough of disillusionment year for AI. There will be an AI-led stock market downturn, although it may be short. There will also be a spectacular AI-based crime, hack, or perhaps a failure of an agentic system causing losses in the billions of dollars. While initially provoking greater skepticism about AI, in the longer term, such incidents will be helpful in promoting needed investments in AI governance. On the legal front, the AI copyright issue around mass-scale data scraping will be effectively resolved through a combination of private settlements, licensing deals, and micropayments. And the US Congress will actually pass legislation addressing some AI risks at the federal level.
Biggest Surprise 2026: Congress will take some action.
Scott Milner | Partner and eData Practice Leader, Morgan Lewis
2026 Prediction: Smarter AI Makes Validation the Competitive Advantage – As legal AI outputs continue to improve; this makes hallucinations harder, not easier, to detect. The risk continues to shift from obviously wrong answers to confidently delivered, plausibly incorrect ones that evade surface-level review. As a result, the differentiator may not be which AI a firm uses, but output validation. Human-in-the-loop workflows, QC, and defensible review processes will become core legal competencies, not optional safeguards, with successful teams treating AI as a tool that accelerates work but still requires supervision and oversight. Tool Overload Will Force Legal to Choose Judgment Over Hype – Legal organizations will continue to face peak AI tool overload, with an abundance of products claiming to solve every problem, but without the human in the loop, few clearly are aligned out of the box for specific legal workflows. Competitive advantage will move away from acquiring more technology and toward having the expertise to evaluate which tools actually solve the problem at hand. It will be important that legal teams define the legal issue first, understand where friction exists, and have evaluators who actually understand how the tools work and which tool actually helps solve the issue identified. The winners will not be those organization with the largest AI stacks, but those that deploy fewer, better-chosen tools with clear purpose, adoption, and measurable impact.
Biggest Surprise 2026: Despite all the news and awareness surrounding AI hallucinations, lawyers who do not understand how to use AI will, unfortunately, continue to have issues identifying and addressing hallucinations.
Austen Parrish | Dean and Chancellor’s Professor, University of California, Irvine School of Law; 2025 President, Association of American Law Schools
2026 Prediction: AI is not slowing down and the legal profession will continue to demand tech-savvy law graduates. We will continue to see: fast-paced experimentation and innovation with AI in law schools, including how faculty teach the use of legal technology in skills-based, drafting, and clinical courses; the growth of AI and technology-focused institutes and centers focused on research around the impact in substantive areas of the law and around professional responsibilities; and discussion and analysis of how AI is changing the legal profession and the provision of legal services. We’ll continue to see interest in how technology may help reduce persistent access to judge gaps and legal deserts.
Biggest Surprise 2026: The biggest surprise may be the lack of big surprises: there will be evolution and new technology, but I’d be surprised if the AI bubble bursts or we see massive disruption in 2026, rather than continued adoption and integration. Legal education will continue to integrate Generative AI as part of practical-skills training, much of the analysis of how AI may change the role of junior lawyers and their practices will continue, and we’ll continue to see concern over the use or misuse of AI in legal proceedings.
Ken Withers | Executive Director, The Sedona Conference
2026 Prediction: Several state bar associations and Supreme Courts will follow Arizona’s lead and add to their Rules of Professional Conduct a duty of counsel to reasonably investigate the provenance of video, audio, screenshots, or other digital documents before they are offered to the court as evidence. Commentators will correctly point out the practical problems associated with identifying possible “deep fakes” or enforcing such a duty, but it will put the bar on notice and provide a basis for disciplining repeated or egregious violations.
Biggest Surprise 2026: The biggest surprise for me will be if lawyers STOP citing fictitious case law, statutes, or regulations generated by Artificial Intelligence. I’m not holding out much hope that sanctions, shaming, or remedial training will significantly improve professional conduct in this regard.
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