Artificial intelligence is reshaping legal work at speed. For lawyers who adopt it early, are finding new ways to work faster, increase their visibility, and focus more time for judgement that clients value most. At the same time, research suggests a new dividing line is quietly emerging, one that runs along gender. Women are adopting AI tools more slowly than men. The encouraging part is that this line can still be redrawn, and the steps to do so are concrete and within reach.

A Real, But Solvable, Gap

The warning signs are worth taking seriously. Three separate reports, Linklaters’ ‘No Woman Left Behind: Closing the AI Gender Gap in Law’, the work of The Next 100 Years, and She Breaks the Law, point to the same risk: without deliberate action, AI could widen existing inequality in law Broader research confirms the pattern. A global study from Harvard Business School, Berkeley and Stanford found women around 20% less likely than men to use generative AI tools, even when comparing men and women in the same profession. A study of 18,000 workers by Humlum and Vestergaard found a 16-point gap in ChatGPT use, and Deloitte reports the same gap in adoption.

This is what makes AI more than a technological development. AI is becoming a career factor. In the legal sector, careers are not built on legal knowledge alone. They are built on visibility, speed, quality, entrepreneurship, strategic insight, and the ability to move with change. A lawyer who uses AI well delivers value faster, and gains more room for analysis, better preparation, more time for clients, and more opportunities to help shape the future of legal work. And that is exactly where the risk sits: when men adopt AI faster than women, the result is not just a gap in digital skills, but a gap in career opportunities. The gap is real and consistent, but it is mostly about whether people give themselves permission to experiment, not about ability. That is exactly what makes it solvable.

Where The Real Value Sits

The advantage does not come from using AI as a shortcut. It comes from using AI to get to the core faster, structure your advice better, improve your preparation, and sharpen your legal judgement.

Consider a lawyer preparing for a negotiation, reviewing hundreds of contracts, summarising witness statements, or drafting a board briefing. AI can handle much of the initial groundwork, allowing the lawyer to focus on strategy, risk assessment, client counsel and decision-making. That is where the real value sits.

Lawyers who gain the greatest advantage from AI are not the most technical. They are the ones who use it to spend less time on routine work and more time on judgement, creativity, and client counsel that organisations truly value.

This matters more than it may seem, because the same skills increasingly shape promotion, salary growth, visibility, and the kind of work you are trusted with.

Three Steps That Work

The good news is that closing the gap does not require a grand plan. It takes three practical habits, and any lawyer can start this week.

1. Make it a daily habit, not a one-off experiment: Pick one recurring task, a first-draft summary, a clause check, a research starting point, and run it through AI every time it comes up. Adoption is built through repetition, not a single training session.
2. Learn in the flow of work and learn from peers: Skip the 90-minute course and bring real questions from your week to short, regular working sessions. A ten-minute demo from a colleague doing the same work is far more convincing than any vendor pitch, and it builds confidence fast.
3. Make your use visible: Share what worked, name the tool in the room, and show a smarter way to prepare. Visibility turns individual skill into professional reputation, and it gives other women in the team permission to do the same.

Naturally, employers, men in leadership positions and organisations carry a real responsibility here. They should provide safe frameworks, clear guidelines, access to tools, proper training, and equal opportunities to take part in AI projects. And women belong not only in the rollout, but in the strategy, involved when the choices are being made, not after the policy has already been written. This is a message worth repeating, and I agree with it.

Yet if that is the only message, we risk making women dependent once again on someone else’s invitation, waiting for the question: who will involve me, who will encourage me, who will open the door? The more empowering truth is that the levers that matter most are already in your own hands. You do not need to wait for permission to build a habit, learn from a peer, or make your work visible. Support from the organisation accelerates the journey, but you can start it yourself today.

AI Is a Strategic Skill

The question, then, is not whether women will eventually use AI. They will.

The real question is whether they will use it early enough, often enough, and visibly enough to strengthen their position. My answer is clear: do not wait to be invited, step in yourself. Not recklessly, not without regard for risk, and never without legal sharpness, but actively, ambitiously and with a real sense of ownership. Do that, and you are not only securing your own place in an AI-driven profession, but you are also helping define what excellence in that profession looks like.

The Opportunity Is Yours

The talent is there, the ambition is there, and the moment is now. So do not wait for the perfect time or the official invitation. Start this week, and if you want help turning that start into real momentum, let’s talk. Whether you are a lawyer who wants to build the habits that put AI to work for your career, or a leader who wants to close the gender gap on your team through the right rollout, training and culture, this is exactly what I do.

At Elevate, we help legal teams and the people in them adopt AI in a way that sticks, with services spanning strategy, training and hands-on adoption support. Reach out to me, and let’s make sure that when the profession is reshaped by AI, women are not just part of the story but helping to write it.