If you ask Thomas Andersen, partner at Brækhus what’s changing in the legal industry, he doesn’t hesitate.
“We’re right in the middle of it,” he says.
As a partner at Brækhus , working with real estate and litigation, his job has always been about making sense of complex situations - understanding the facts, applying the law, and arguing clearly for his client’s position.
That hasn’t changed.
But the way you get there has.
For Thomas, becoming a lawyer was never accidental. It was something he had been drawn to for a long time - the combination of analysing text, understanding facts, and building arguments.
“I’ve always been fascinated by it,” he says. “Understanding a situation and being able to argue for a client - that’s what makes the job meaningful.”
And that meaning still sits at the centre of the work: helping people through disputes that are often financial, legal, and personal all at once.
What’s different now is the environment that work happens in.
AI, in his view, is not just another tool.
“It’s probably the biggest technological shift our industry has seen in a long time,” he says.
And importantly - no one really knows exactly where it will lead.
What is clear is that it will change how lawyers work.
At Brækhus , that change is already visible.
AI platforms like Saga are used across the entire lifecycle of a case. Not in isolated moments, but continuously - from the very beginning through to final argumentation.
It starts with the facts.
Sorting through documents, identifying what actually matters, separating the important from the irrelevant. That process used to take time. A lot of time.
Now, it moves faster.
“We use it first to understand the facts,” Thomas explains. “To identify what’s actually central in the case.”
From there, it becomes part of the legal work itself - supporting research, testing arguments, and helping shape how a case is presented.
But what stands out most isn’t just speed.
It’s what that speed allows.
“The biggest difference,” he says, “is that we can spend more time on the high-value work.”
Less time going through documents. Less time repeating manual processes. More time focusing on legal strategy, argumentation, and judgement.
And that shift matters - not just internally, but for clients.
“It means better results, earlier.”
But bringing AI into legal work isn’t just about doing the same things faster.
It forces a deeper change.
“You have to rethink your processes,” Thomas says.
Because when technology becomes part of every step, you can’t rely on informal or unstructured ways of working anymore. You need clarity. You need consistency.
At Brækhus , that has meant going through how work is done - step by step - and standardising it in a way they hadn’t before.
“All phases of our work have now been reviewed and structured differently,” he says.
Not as an administrative exercise, but because it becomes necessary.
When AI is involved in everything, you need to understand everything.
At the same time, the role of the lawyer becomes sharper - not smaller.
If anything, the demands increase.
“Using a tool like this requires a strong critical mindset,” he says.
You cannot take outputs at face value. You have to question them. Test them. Understand where they come from.
“You still have to apply your own method and your own judgement.”
That responsibility doesn’t go away - it becomes more important.
And it requires something else as well: Understanding the technology itself. What it does. What it doesn’t do. Where it works well - and where it doesn’t.
Because of that, a lot of effort internally is not just going into using AI, but into learning how to use it properly.
“We spend a lot of resources on understanding how to use it,” he says.
Not just in isolated teams, but across the firm.
The goal isn’t just adoption. It’s competence.
One of the more interesting ways Thomas describes using AI is as a kind of counterpart in the legal process.
Not just something that supports your thinking - but something that challenges it.
“We use it to ask: is there something we’ve missed? Are there arguments we should focus on? Can this be turned around?”
It becomes a way of pressure-testing your own case.
Even playing devil’s advocate.
And in litigation, where argumentation is everything, that has real value.
“It gives us a much stronger position - both legally and factually.”
Clients are noticing the shift as well.
Some come in with their own AI-generated answers. Others simply expect that their lawyers are using the best tools available.
And increasingly, they expect something else too: That efficiency gains are reflected in cost.
“There’s an expectation that the benefits come back to the client,” Thomas says. Which reinforces the same point: This isn’t just a technological shift. It’s a commercial one as well.
In the end, the impact is quite tangible.
Work that used to take significant time - document review, initial legal analysis - can now be done faster and more thoroughly.
That doesn’t reduce the complexity of the job.
But it changes where the effort goes. “We move away from the necessary, low-value work,” Thomas says, “and towards the more interesting legal work.” Better arguments. Better strategy. Better outcomes.
And yet, for all the change, the core of the profession remains the same.
Understanding people. Understanding conflict. Building a case that holds up - legally and factually.
AI doesn’t replace that. But it does raise the standard for how it’s done.
“We don’t know exactly where this is going,” Thomas says. “But we know it’s changing how we work.” And that change is already well underway.
