The skills clients will demand from their lawyers are about to change dramatically. Or are they?
The McKinsey Panel
At CES 2026, one of the more revealing keynotes featured Jason Calacanis interviewing Bob Sternfels of McKinsey and Heman Taneja of General Catalyst about the future of employment, among other things. What emerged wasn’t just advice for new graduates, it signaled a roadmap for how lawyers need to think about client origination and service.
At one point, the panelists touched on a critical issue: what skills will be sought after by employers with the advent of agentic AI. While the panelists focused on those who are getting out of school in today’s tough employment market, what they were talking about will also apply to what lawyers will have to do to attract future clients.
A Game Changer?
The game changer in hiring according to the panel: businesses will no longer be focused on those who can just solve problems because so many problems can and will be solved by AI.
The first question to ask is instead what skills humans have that GenAI and AI don’t. According to the panelist, it boils down to three things: AI can’t aspire, it can’t provide leadership, and it can’t apply human judgment.
New Skills?
As a result, the future will belong to those who ask the right questions about the problems. Who can look at what a problem means. Who can figure out the impact the problem — and more importantly, the solution — will have for the future.
It will matter less what school candidates go to and more what they aspire to. How resilient they can be. Leadership skills will be more important. And drive and passion may be everything.
If you want to get hired, the panelists say worry less about your resume and more about doing some work, even if for free, that demonstrates what you can do. That shows you have new ways of thinking about things. And how you can change a system or platform for the person you want to be hired by.
Hiring will not be premised on future on-the-job training since it will take less time to build an agentic agent than for human training. (This point was driven home to me later in a keynote by Caterpillar CEO Joe Creed and his team. They displayed an AI bot that can provide step-by-step instructions to a heavy equipment operator, bypassing an otherwise steep learning curve.)
This means that some kinds of experience will matter less and judgment more. It will not be enough to recite information; it will be the ability to use that information in gray areas where there is no clear-cut right or wrong answer.
Being nimble and innovative will matter more. AI and technology in general are developing at exponentially warp speed. Being adept at fast adoption and implementation will matter more than ever.
All sounded pretty astute even though the panelists lacked concrete examples. But more than that, I think they misunderstand what skills and talents already set superstars apart. What sets themselves apart.
Thinking about this in the legal context might help.
Asking the Right Questions
I often handled serial litigation—cases involving the same product, same issues, and same harm in a variety of jurisdictions—over my career. These cases were often viewed as merely requiring a standard playbook. File an answer, take depositions, defend the cases, bill by the hour.
But one particular case was unusual. It needed a new way of thinking and asking the right questions. It meant noticing that most of the individual cases resolved via settlement at mediation, that it was important to the client to move the cases quickly, and that many of the lawyers on the other side were also very knowledgeable about the cases.
That led to quickly getting the client the information needed to assess the exposure by asking the other side to provide that information with the complaint. In exchange, it meant a commitment to the other side to mediate the case within 60 days. And it meant converting to a flat fee instead of billable hour to solve client goals. The result: a national problem for the client was resolved in a fraction of the time previously thought.
That’s asking the right questions and coming up with a new holistic approach.
What This Means for Legal
If the panelists were right, it would seem at first blush the legal world is about to be turned upside down. The traditional legal model assumes law schools will teach people the law. Young lawyers would then learn how to practice by apprenticing at firms; the proverbial on-the-job training. As they moved up the ladder, they would get clients by knowing the law, providing information to clients, and standing out for their expertise.
But that model seems different than what the panelists outlined. And while the panel was talking about how to get hired out of school, they might just as well have been talking about how a lawyer gets hired by a client. A client who may think just like those on the panel.
What does this mean? It may no longer be enough to be able to do a workman-like job solving legal problems. Instead, what will matter more is the ability to provide holistic answers to what the client needs. It means harnessing the tech tools and providing what clients can’t get from their own AI agents. It requires asking better questions; questions the client may not have thought of. To have the passion, drive, and aspiration to see things differently. To be able to lead a team. To be resilient in the face of change. To demonstrate your abilities by offering to handle a client’s matters in new and unusual ways.
Experience will matter, yes, but only to the extent it supplies judgment to do things in better ways. To get to the core issues, not the surface ones.
It won’t be enough to send a client an email notifying them of a development the client will likely find on their own. It won’t be enough to tell them the news; you will need to tell them what it means.
It won’t be enough to be an expert in a field. You will need to show how you can use that expertise to do things an AI agent can’t do and the client can’t access on their own. That takes judgment.
But Then Again, Isn’t That What Superstars Have Always Done?
But then again, isn’t that what superstar lawyers and originators have always done? Isn’t that what my example demonstrates?
It’s that ability and willingness to adapt to new issues and challenges and use those challenges for your benefit. It’s not being constrained by experience but using it. It’s asking the right questions and seeing where things may be going.
The question is not what surface skills will get me hired. It’s asking what conceptual approach will provide what clients really need. And in some cases, that means figuring out the needs before the client does. Like showing the client the solution to their legal budget crisis is for you to change your billing model.
Asking what skills you need for the future and how to get them is the wrong question. The right question is how you should philosophically approach what you’re doing in ways a bot can’t. That philosophy must include being aspirational, having passion, and being ready to change and adapt. And putting your client first.
Want to be hired in the future? Start with the right mindset.
Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and writer. He publishes TechLaw Crossroads, a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law.