The best investment in your future is to bet on yourself in the AI age.
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So much digital ink has been spilled over AI and job loss that we sometimes forget just how productive technology makes us. And how much time it saves.
Case in point: my dad just retired from being a lawyer after 46 years of practicing. When he began his career, it wasn’t unusual for him to spend hours holed up in the law library, poring through case law out of endless printed books to build his briefs.
Today?
Not only can attorneys turn to LexisNexis’ extensive database for statutes, regulations, and secondary sources, they can use AI-powered legal research tools to supercharge their efficiency to impressive heights.
All that time saved should be a boon for attorneys and their clients, unless the firm operates with a scarcity mindset. Relational Psych describes this as a “psychological state where individuals constantly fear they don’t have enough money, even if they are financially secure. This mindset can drive life decisions, leading to stress, anxiety, and tension in personal relationships.”
Scarcity Still Defines the Legal Industry
Though firms today are far more productive than they once were, many still languish under antiquated practices. For instance, they emphasize billable hours as the best use of associates’ time. As attorneysatwork.com explains, “Traditional compensation models often prioritize billable hours at the expense of other contributions that add long-term value to the business enterprise, such as mentoring, building firm culture and business development.”
Because of AI, that dynamic is shifting.
To understand why, I sat down with attorney Robert Hartmann. A criminal defense attorney possessing nearly 40 years of experience himself, he understands how things once worked and where they’re going. “It used to be that when you joined a big firm, you had very little chance to bring in your own clients unless you showed enormous initiative, including attending bar association meetings, networking events and other after-hours gatherings,” said Hartmann. “Thanks to AI, young associates can use their extra productivity to provide more value to their firms but only if their firm embraces an abundance mindset, starting with rainmaking.”
The growing importance of legal rainmaking is the topic of Hartmann’s upcoming book, an issue he’s deeply passionate about, going so far as to suggest it’s the most critical skillset an attorney can master, next to knowing intricacies of the law. “The ability to bring in business has been the major constant in my career. I used such skills to build the Hartmann Law Firm as a team of experts in criminal cases ranging from murder and white-collar crimes to DUI and drug offenses.”
Why Firms Must Think Differently
Too many practices still lack the cooperative mindset Hartmann espouses. Instead, they often relegate networking and rainmaking to senior attorneys. This limited thinking reveals a scarcity mindset. Law firms worry that if an associate gets too successful in bringing in new business, they might jump ship for a better paying job or go into practice for themselves.
There’s reasonable cause for such concern, but again, only if you operate with a scarcity mindset. A more abundant point of view can see the bigger picture. That picture comes into focus when we consult the historian/futurist Yuval Harari.
In his book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Harari explains just how unprecedented the period we are living through is by comparing it to a farmer in China circa 1018. Even though this person couldn’t predict specific events to come, like if the Song Empire might collapse or neighboring tribes would invade, they had zero worries that their livelihood, the very same vocation their ancestors had performed for centuries, would vanish.
Harari’s advice for someone navigating so much change today is to stay endlessly flexible despite our economic maelstrom: “In order to keep up with the world of 2050, you will need not merely to invent new ideas and products—you will above all need to reinvent yourself again and again.”
Investing in People for Power
There’s a lesson here for firms and lawyers. Yesteryear’s practices often invested their earnings into the usual trappings of success like lavish offices and expense accounts. Partners at the top enjoyed most of the profits while the associates earned pittances in comparison until they “paid their dues.”
Knowing that AI can boost productivity in ways not possible until now, progressive law firms would do well to invest in their people, not just to learn the ins and outs of proper lawyering, but also in rainmaking. In this way, associates can go from being economic risks to force multipliers. Or as Hartmann explains, “Every new relationship an associate develops can potentially feed a firm’s pipeline. Every speaking event, networking group or referral connection can also strengthen a firm’s brand.”
Individual lawyers stand to benefit from a similar abundance mindset too, but only if they also broaden their perspective. As Harari explains so well in his prescient book, knowledge is no longer the commodity it once was in 2025. Now that AI makes it easier than ever to access legal information, it’s no longer good enough to be competent in researching, writing, or even trial prep.
The market expects more.
The New Job Security: Investing in Yourself
Moving forward, the most successful lawyers will be those who recognize and leverage the strength of rainmaking on top of their legal skills. Returning to my father, he understood this fact 40-something years ago but for a different reason than today’s typical associate. Self-employed, it was up to him to ensure he thoroughly researched his cases—and made the phone consistently ring.
Knowing this, entrepreneurial skills like rainmaking will increasingly offer greater economic security in our insecure world, especially for lawyers. Dario Amodei shows us why. The CEO of Anthropic recently said, “AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs—and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years,” according to Axios.
AI may indeed swallow up once secure entry level roles, including at law firms. This makes Hartmann’s insights more urgent. Assuming an abundance mindset is especially imperative for lawyers starting out. Liberated from so much knowledge work, they are freer to produce more wealth for themselves and the firms they serve when they expand their duties to rainmaking.
And if that firm they work so hard for eventually does decide to downsize them for whatever reason some day? They can always go to work for themselves. That’s rainmaking’s real edge: market power in an uncertain world.