The Year to Build: The Challenge for 2026
Where I explore how moving from experimentation to action can reshape the legal profession and empower justice everywhere
Hey everyone!
Last year, I challenged us all to embrace healthy anarchy: intentional disruption, open-minded exploration, curiosity and freedom. That message was about giving ourselves permission to break from tradition and reimagine what legal practice could look like in the age of AI.
This year, I want to build on that foundation. Because disruption without construction is just noise.
When I co-hosted the American Legal Technology Awards in October of last year, I shared something that’s been on my mind: We’ve had our year of experimenting. We’ve had our year of planning.
Now is the time to build!
This substack, LawDroid Manifesto, is here to keep you in the loop about the intersection of AI and the law. Please share this article with your friends and colleagues and remember to tell me what you think in the comments below.
A Time to Build
Think about where we’ve been. In 2024, legal professionals were experimenting with AI, testing the waters, kicking the tires, figuring out what these tools could even do. In 2025, we started planning, developing strategies, thinking about integration, imagining possibilities. But planning without building is just dreaming.
2026 is different.
AI is reshaping the legal industry at an unprecedented pace, and it’s creating opportunities that were once unimaginable. The blueprints are drawn. The tools are in hand. Now is the moment for all of us as legal innovators to roll up our sleeves and harness this power to make positive change in the world.
Exceptional Legal Innovators who are building this year are:
Jamie Tso, who is ushering in a wave of lawyer vibe-coding.
Amanda Brown, who is using code vibing to bring justice to the people.
Zack Shapiro, who is a 10x lawyer with his Claude-Native law firm.
This isn’t about waiting for perfection.
It’s about shipping. Iterating. Getting something out there that serves real people with real legal needs, and then making it better.
LawDroid’s mission remains simple yet powerful: empowering justice everywhere. But empowerment in 2026 means moving from vision to execution, from talking about what AI could do to showing the world what it does.
What Are We Building?
Building in this context means more than writing code or deploying chatbots. It means constructing new systems, new relationships, and new pathways to justice:
Building Access at Scale: We now have the tools to deliver high-quality legal guidance to anyone, anywhere. The question is no longer can we but will we. Every AI-powered legal tool we build is a brick in the bridge between those who have access to justice and those who don’t.
Building New Models of Practice: The old billable-hour, office-bound model isn’t just outdated, it’s a barrier. Builders in this space are creating dynamic, responsive, human-centered legal services that meet people where they are, on their phones, in their communities, in their language.
Building Community: At the American Legal Technology Awards, I was reminded that what holds this movement together isn’t technology, it’s us. It’s the sense of belonging, togetherness, and camaraderie we share. Technology is one way we come together, but at bottom, it’s human beings collaborating from a common place of experience, wanting better lives for ourselves and our families.
Why Building Matters Now
We’re living through a difficult time. Political tensions, economic uncertainty, and deep divisions make it tempting to retreat, to wait, to play it safe. But this is precisely when building matters most.
In times of difficulty, the answer isn’t to hunker down. It’s to build something that makes the world a little more just, a little more accessible, a little more human.
The mission we’ve carried from day one at the American Legal Technology Awards captures this perfectly:
Expand our understanding of what’s possible. Every builder pushes the boundaries of what legal technology can achieve.
Encourage a virtuous cycle of improvement. When we celebrate achievements, we inspire others to build more and build better.
Create a more just society. Heaven knows we need that right now.
This aligns with LawDroid’s mission: to promote justice everywhere.
Come Build With Us
The Year to Build isn’t just a theme, it’s an invitation.
I’m calling on every lawyer, technologist, legal aid worker, and innovator to stop waiting for someone else to solve the access-to-justice crisis. Stop waiting for the perfect tool. Stop waiting for permission.
The future of law won’t be built by spectators. It will be built by people like you: the ones who showed up, who care, who are ready to get their hands dirty.
So here’s my challenge for 2026: Build something.
Build an AI tool that helps a pro bono client. Build a workflow that gives you back hours to spend on meaningful advocacy. Build a partnership with someone outside your usual circle. Build a practice that looks nothing like what came before.
If you’d like to learn how, attend the LawDroid AI Conference, coming up next month:
April 28-29 • Virtual • Free (Sponsored by PLI)
“The Year to Build”
This free, two-day virtual conference brings together lawyers, legal aid advocates, court innovators, technologists, academics, and legal-tech enthusiasts from around the world to learn, share ideas, and discover practical ways to use AI in legal work and access to justice. I’ll be sharing our full two-day schedule later this week.
Don’t miss it, snag your spot today!
The healthy anarchists lit the fire. Now it’s time to build with it.
Let’s build the future of law — together!
Tom Martin is CEO & Founder of LawDroid, Adjunct Professor at Suffolk University Law School, and Author of the forthcoming AI with Purpose: A Strategic Blueprint for Legal Transformation (Globe Law and Business). He is “The AI Law Professor” and writes his eponymous column for the Thomson Reuters Institute.