3 Trends That Will Define Legal Work in 2026

Legal work has undergone a significant shift in recent years. It not only happens across environments, it also happens across digital tools and devices. Lawyers review documents in transit, respond to stakeholders across time zones, and rely on multiple devices to keep matters moving. At the same time, AI has become a routine part of legal reasoning and drafting.

Even with this progress, key questions remain about what modern legal work actually looks like: How often are lawyers turning to AI? Which devices do they depend on? Where does friction persist in their day-to-day work?

To answer these questions, we conducted a global survey of 200 legal professionals (not necessarily Harvey users) across North America, EMEA, and APAC. The resulting report, How Mobile and AI Transform Legal Work: 2026 Outlook, offers new insight into how mobile work and AI are impacting legal practice — and where critical gaps remain.

Below, we highlight three trends from the research that will shape legal work in the year ahead. We also outline why closing the Mobile–AI gap will be essential to the legal industry’s next phase of digital maturity.

One of the clearest signals from the research is that mobile devices drive the rhythm of legal work. Lawyers are no longer anchored to a single workstation or location; instead, they move fluidly across offices, homes, courthouses, and travel environments — and their workflows follow.

The data reflects this reality: 86% of lawyers rely on a smartphone or tablet as their primary away-from-desk device, and 89% check work messages multiple times per day outside standard hours.

As mobile work has become the norm, it’s brought new expectations for immediacy and flexibility. Work must continue wherever lawyers are, and their tools must support rapid context switching and secure, on-the-go access. Yet many systems still assume a desktop-first workflow, creating a growing mismatch between how lawyers work and how their tools are designed.

AI has become an everyday part of legal work, supporting tasks like research, drafting, synthesis, and early analysis. What was once experimental is now embedded in the flow of daily practice.

The survey results show that usage is widespread: 40% of lawyers use AI multiple times per day and 80% use it at least weekly for both personal and professional purposes. Junior lawyers anticipate the greatest change ahead, with 90% expecting AI to moderately or significantly reshape their workflows in the coming year.

Across practice areas, lawyers describe AI as a way to move faster at the outset of matters — organizing information, summarizing key issues, and reducing cognitive load so they can focus on higher-value analysis. In this way, AI is no longer on the periphery; it is becoming a core part of how lawyers manage their day-to-day work.

While AI use is increasing, many of the workflows surrounding it have not evolved at the same pace. Lawyers move seamlessly across devices throughout the day, yet most AI tools remain anchored to desktop environments, creating friction when speed and accessibility are essential.

This disconnect is clear in the data, with 75% of lawyers primarily accessing AI on laptops or desktops while only 20% do so on smartphones — despite mobile devices being the primary away-from-desk tool for most lawyers. As a result, lawyers may shift contexts or delay tasks simply because AI tools are not available where their work is happening.

Addressing this mismatch between AI adoption and access will be essential to enabling more fluid and efficient legal workflows in the year ahead.

The findings point to a clear conclusion: while lawyers have embraced both mobile work and AI, these two shifts have not yet converged, introducing friction at points where lawyers need fast, reliable access to information. Closing this gap is essential to the next stage of digital maturity in legal work.

Lawyers need AI that moves with them, maintains context across devices, and delivers secure, accurate, and reliable output wherever work happens. The platforms that succeed will be those that support cross-device workflows without compromising governance or professional standards — and, in doing so, shape how legal work evolves in 2026 and beyond.

For a deeper look at the full set of findings and insights, read the report: How Mobile and AI Transform Legal Work: 2026 Outlook.

Curious how Harvey is closing the mobile–AI gap? See how our iOS and Android mobile apps make AI accessible wherever legal work happens.