Is AI finally going to kill the billable hour?

People have been predicting its death for decades. Maurice Tunney thinks this time might actually be different.

David Woolstencroft had a great conversation with Maurice, Director of Technology and Innovation at Keystone Law, about AI, technology and the very different platform model behind Keystone.

Maurice has worked in legal for 25 years and has heard the “death of the billable hour” conversation throughout his career. But with AI now dramatically reducing the time needed for certain types of legal work, his view is that something fundamental has to change. If the time required to do the work is being slashed, can firms really keep charging for time in the same way?

They also talk about Keystone’s unique operating model, building technology around how lawyers actually work, practical AI adoption, and one lawyer who has grown his practice by around 60–70% with AI helping, under close supervision, with drafting, analysis and chronology work.

A fascinating conversation about what AI might really change inside a law firm, beyond simply adding another tool to the tech stack.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:31 Meet Maurice
3:46 The 15% Referral Incentive
5:06 The Happiest Law Firm
6:22 Why Lawyers Join
8:14 Building From Scratch In The Cloud
13:00 Choosing The Tech Stack
17:40 The AI Pressure
19:43 Keybot And Secure ChatGPT
23:00 When Clients Use ChatGPT
24:44 The Death Of The Billable Hour
27:42 AI As The Junior
28:45 Picking The Big AI Tools
30:31 Rolling Out AI Without Overload
32:29 A Year From Now

Guest: Maurice Tunney, Director of Technology and Innovation, Keystone Law
Host: David Woolstencroft

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𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗔𝗜 𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗷𝘂𝗺𝗽𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 $𝟭𝟱,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝘁𝗼 $𝟲𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵?

At #ILTACON2026, Tim Kenney sat down with Peter Geovanes, Founder of Juris Tech Advisors, LLC, to talk about where law firms are really up to with AI.

Peter works with firms at very different stages, from choosing tools and identifying use cases to training lawyers, managing governance and working out what AI means for pricing and client conversations.

One issue getting much harder to ignore is AI consumption costs. Peter shared an example of a firm moving from roughly $15,000 a month to more than $60,000, with some lawyers generating around $1,000 a day in token costs.

That raises a bigger question: if AI saves hours of lawyer time but creates a significant technology cost, how should firms price that value for clients?

They also get into knowledge management, shadow AI, better prompting, and why Peter believes a well-structured prompt can sometimes deliver better results without always reaching for the most expensive model.

“𝗜 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗮 𝗯𝗶𝗰𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝘁𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝘀.”

At #ILTACON2026, Tim Kenney sat down with Andrew Hutchinson, Founder of Rebel.Group, to talk acquisitions, AI hype and what law firms actually need.

After more than 20 years in legal tech, Hutch has seen the same pattern play out again and again: companies get acquired, founders move on, and the people with the passion and deep product knowledge disappear with them.

𝗥𝗲𝗯𝗲𝗹.𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁.

And on AI? Hutch isn’t buying all the hype.

His view is simple: 𝗳𝗶𝘅 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁. Remove the painful manual work. Give people their time back. Then start layering intelligence on top.

They also get into whether AI will really reduce legal spend, whether today’s valuations make sense, and why better data could completely change pricing and how firms resource matters.

#PeopleInLegal #ILTACON2026 #WeAreILTA #LegalTech #LegalAI