Digital transformation in European law firms: what the big firms are doing (with real data)
Discover how major European law firms are transforming their operations with AI and real data. Clifford Chance, Freshfields and more reveal their strategies.
Digital transformation in European law firms: what the big firms are doing (with real data)
The European legal sector is experiencing something that goes beyond chatbot experimentation. There are firms making operational decisions that affect hundreds of people, reorganizing entire teams and citing artificial intelligence as a determining factor. These aren't future plans. These are facts that have already happened.
Analyzing what they're doing and why is useful for any legal executive, regardless of the size of their firm. Because what's happening today in the big firms usually reaches the rest of the sector in two or three years.
Clifford Chance: optimizing from profitability
In November 2025, Clifford Chance informed about 550 support services employees in London that the firm planned to eliminate approximately 50 positions and modify the functions of another 35. The affected areas included finance, human resources and technology.
The context is what makes this case relevant. Clifford Chance had just come off a year with revenues of £2.4 billion (9% more than the previous fiscal year) and an average profit per partner of £2.1 million. This wasn't a firm in crisis. It was a profitable firm redesigning its operational structure.
The firm cited greater use of AI as one of the factors, along with outsourcing to centers in Poland and India. Clifford Chance had developed its own internal AI tool (Clifford Chance Assist, launched in 2023), which gave it a technological foundation on which to make these decisions.
The pattern is clear: the restructuring didn't affect lawyers, but support functions. AI didn't replace the jurist. It redesigned the operational architecture around the jurist.
Baker McKenzie: confirmation at scale
In February 2026, Baker McKenzie announced cuts that could affect between 600 and 1,000 support services employees globally (less than 10% of its workforce of more than 7,000 professionals in this category). The affected functions included research, marketing, know-how, secretarial and design.
The firm was explicit in its communication, saying it had conducted a "careful review" to "rethink the way we work, including the use of AI, introduce efficiencies and invest in the roles that best serve our clients' needs."
The case opened a debate about whether some firms are using AI as a convenient justification for cuts motivated by other factors, a phenomenon known as "AI washing." But regardless of the motivations, the effect on the market was real: legal recruitment experts anticipate that more firms will follow this path.
Iberdrola: integration without headlines
Not everything is cuts. There are organizations that have integrated AI into their legal departments progressively and with measurable results.
In October 2025, during an event of the Madrid Bar Association, Isabel Nieto (Iberdrola) explained how the company has been using AI to optimize legal processes since 2018. Custom tools, internal chatbots, intelligent search for contract management. All with multidisciplinary teams that combine legal and technological profiles.
What makes Iberdrola's case different is governance. The company has a corporate AI policy approved by its board of directors, a Global AI Center, and was the first company to certify its AI management system with AENOR under ISO/IEC 42001. That's not a pilot. It's a strategy sustained over years.
The trend isn't limited to big firms
In 2025, BCLP cut 8% of its global support staff. DWF launched dismissal consultations for more than 100 professionals. Pinsent Masons reduced its team in Germany. CMS eliminated positions in London for the second time in 18 months.
In Spain, according to the Break the Limits 2025 report, generative AI is the number one technology that firms plan to invest in (48% prioritize it). According to Wolters Kluwer, 54.4% of small and medium-sized firms have already increased their automation.
The data that none of the 100 largest U.S. firms plan to reduce their lawyer workforce (Harvard Law Center) is significant. What's changing isn't the number of jurists. It's the structure around them.
Three emerging patterns
Looking at these cases together, there are three constants.
AI impacts support functions first, not lawyers. The firms that best integrate technology invest in governance (policies, mixed teams, certifications), not just tools. And whoever waits too long doesn't choose, reacts. Those who decide now do so with margin to plan and measure. Those who wait will end up making reactive cuts.
What a legal executive can do with this information
Three concrete steps that don't require budget or anyone's approval:
First, map for two weeks where the support team's time goes. Document management, internal reporting, deadline tracking, administrative coordination. The data will tell you where the real opportunity lies.
Second, ask what tools your team is already using on their own. Not to police, but to govern. Without that information, any technological decision starts from an incomplete picture.
Third, don't copy another firm's strategy. What works at Clifford Chance doesn't work in a 15-lawyer firm. But the principle does apply: identify the operational problem before choosing the tool.
Sources:
- Financial Times, "Clifford Chance to cut London business services staff" (November 2025).
- RollOnFriday / Bloomberg Law, coverage of restructuring at Baker McKenzie (February 2026).
- ICAM, "The AI that's already revolutionizing law practice" (October 2025).
- Iberdrola, commitment to EU AI Act and ISO/IEC 42001.
- Fundación Aranzadi LA LEY, Break the Limits 2025 Report.
- Wolters Kluwer, Small Law Firms Spain Report (2025).
- Harvard Law Center on the Legal Profession.
- The Global Legal Post, restructuring at BCLP, DWF, Pinsent Masons and CMS (2025).