As much discussed, artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the economics of legal services, making it harder for firms to differentiate based on the extent and relevance of their lawyers’ legal expertise.

The pressure is already showing. For example, according to Thomson Reuters’ 2026 Future of Professionals Report, there is a disconnect between client expectations and firms’ use of AI. In its survey, 78% of corporate clients consider AI-enabled improvements in quality very important or essential, yet only 6% of these respondents believe most of their law firm providers are delivering them. Some 32% of corporate clients are reconsidering relationships with firms that are falling behind.

In turn, these findings increase the importance of marketing, communications, and business development (BD) functions for law firms. Furthermore, the emphasis of these functions is shifting towards reinforcing the firms’ positioning, excelling at data analytics, and enhancing existing client relationships.

Here are five ways that the BD, marketing, and communications trifecta can build resilience.

1. Firm positioning: the foundation of reputation

Before BD outreach and marketing tactics, firms need to answer a fundamental question: what are they known for, and what do they want to be known for?

Law firms have traditionally been built around relationships and individual partner reputations. But clients also compare firms, lawyers and areas of expertise online and are using generative AI alongside search engines to evaluate firms before making contact. Firms therefore need to articulate clearly who they serve, where they have expertise and why that expertise matters. Furthermore, a clear, consistent proposition is especially important for firms to improve their visibility in AI-generated search results.

Ideally, that proposition should work coherently at each level: the firm, practice, team and individual lawyer. Without it, firms risk becoming collections of practices and personal reputations, with different offices and partners describing the organisation in diverse ways and unintentionally creating confusion for prospects.

The objective is to make the firm and its lawyers easier to understand and distinguish for humans and AI alike. Core messages should be consistent across the website, lawyer profiles, thought leadership, media coverage and client conversations, giving both human prospects and AI systems a clearer understanding of what the firm stands for and where it adds value. This positioning lays the foundation for a firm’s reputation and brand, which are then further developed through activities such as media engagement and event marketing.

2. Proprietary client data: the building block for business development

Many firms still rely heavily on partners’ personal networks and institutional memory. Information about clients, prospects and relationships can be scattered across spreadsheets, email inboxes and individual contact lists, making it difficult to build a consistent picture of a client or identify the next opportunity.

A well-run customer relationship management (CRM) system can bring together information on clients, matters, contacts, referrals and business development activity. Used properly, it gives lawyers and BD teams a clearer view of relationship strength, potential areas for growth and signs that a client may be becoming less engaged.

The software itself, however, is not the critical asset. It is the data accumulated within it that matters. Years of matter history, client interactions, and referral patterns provide a firm with a holistic and detailed understanding of its relationships, which is very difficult for competitors to replicate. And with AI, this data becomes even more valuable: lead scoring, sentiment analysis and the like can help identify relationships requiring attention and opportunities that might otherwise be missed.

The main challenge is CRM adoption.

Painstaking as it may be at times, lawyers and their assistants do need to update and use the system consistently. Firms that achieve this turn CRM from a problematic contact database into a record of institutional knowledge and market data, reinforcing client relationships, supporting business development and creating a competitive advantage in an era of AI-driven uncertainty.

3. Human relationships: the cornerstone of the business of law

It could be assumed that better technology will make human relationships less important in business. The evidence suggests otherwise.

For example, clients increasingly expect even more rapid and consistent communication. In April 2026, a survey by the Law Firm Marketing Club found that the most important expectation of 88% of clients was direct, regular contact, followed by weekly updates (85%) and same-day responses (83%).

Yet satisfaction does not automatically convert to loyalty. While 89% said they would use the same firm again, only 56% of clients who had instructed a firm more than once actually did so.

As AI makes information and various aspects of legal work more accessible, the value of lawyers who understand a client’s business, history, and priorities will increase. AI can suggest legal answers. AI cannot, however, understand why these answers matter to a specific client or how they fit into the broader commercial relationship and business context. That remains the responsibility of the (human) lawyer.

4. Client feedback: a channel for business intelligence

Client feedback is another area where many firms could do more.

Thomson Reuters research found that clients spend twice as much with firms that formally seek feedback, while only about 20% of clients are asked to provide it.

Yet client listening is often treated as a satisfaction survey rather than a source of business intelligence. The value of a feedback programme should not be limited to whether a client was happy with the last matter. The more useful questions concern what is changing in the client’s business and what they will need next from their advisers.

This distinction matters when clients themselves are also dealing with rapid changes in technology, AI capabilities, regulation and markets. Firms that listen intelligently to clients’ shifting priorities have a better chance of spotting those changes early and responding before a competitor does, further strengthening their defences.

5. Business development: as a defensive play

Client feedback programmes also support business development. The traditional image of BD, characterised by a series of pitches, networking events, and new-business campaigns, is becoming increasingly outdated. In a more uncertain market, protecting existing relationships can be as important as finding new ones.

That puts greater emphasis on retention and on understanding what is happening inside a client’s business. Good business development is closely correlated with good client service: understanding a client’s priorities, staying curious and connected, sharing useful insights or raising issues before the client asks, and making the right introductions to other specialists in the firm.

According to research from US consultancy Alphacoast, it is roughly five times cheaper to retain an existing client than to win a new one. In the era of AI-driven uncertainty, business development’s highest-value activities are not only prospecting but also reinforcing firm business by driving retention.

Conclusion: Building the moat

AI will continue to transform the delivery, pricing, and evaluation of legal services. Law firms cannot control the pace of that change, but they can control how well they are positioned to withstand it.

The strongest defence is not simply better technology or greater legal expertise. It is the combination of expertise with a clear market position, deep and well-managed institutional knowledge, resilient client relationships and the ability to anticipate clients’ changing needs.

That is where marketing, communications and business development grow as strategic functions. Together, they make a firm easier to understand, more clearly visible to prospective clients and more relevant to existing ones.

In an environment where AI is making expertise more accessible and competition harder to distinguish, these capabilities create a defensive moat. They are difficult to replicate because they are built over time through reputation, relationships, proprietary data and an understanding of clients that technology alone cannot provide. The firms that emerge strongest from the AI transition will be the ones that recognise this reality and invest accordingly.