AI just changed what small firms can do with legal research

Appearances can be deceiving. A shiny new AI tool doesn't mean you can cancel your research subscriptions. A blue-themed website doesn't make someone trustworthy. A software switch doesn't have to result in chaos. And that legal headline doesn't tell the whole story. This week, we're pulling back the curtain on four things that look one way from the outside but work differently than you'd expect.

Coming soon, hear from the attorney whose practice is a prosecutorial oasis in the legal desert.

But first, are we really at the point where a criminal defendant giving birth in court is something that’s being quasi-celebrated?

Leave the gun, take the cannoli rotisserie chicken.
The TSA has issued what you could loosely call “regulatory guidance” on carry-on chicken. Want to know what other weird stuff you can bring on the plane? There’s an online tool for that. 

“Remember, it’s the Bill of Rights, not the Jill of Rights.”
The painful truth of this satire on “Girl Rights” from Alexandra Petri is that it’s too real when people are actually talking about things like household voting and being under-babied. 

Owning so many books you have to get your home’s floors reinforced is a flex.
The late Justice David Souter’s home in New Hampshire is for sale, and it comes with a few special features. 

The song of the summer?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dropped an animated theme song explaining what it does. The monkey riding a rocket will assure you this is not a cheap knock-off of a classic Schoolhouse Rock video brought to you by the court trusted with enforcing copyright law. 

Speaking of songs, I’m sorry this one is about to be stuck in your head.
A California judge has ruled that the Kars4Kids’ jingle violates the state’s False Advertising Law.

Staying in touch with your clients has never been more important for law firms in 2026. Zoom provides users with a highly functional and intuitive communication platform that can integrate with your existing workflows. Helpful features include:

Stop living in the past and upgrade your phone system with Zoom Phone.

Switching software is one of those decisions law firms delay for years. Not because the old system is working well, but because making a change feels like too much of a hassle.

PracticePanther recently addressed this common pain point in a guide it developed for firms switching billing platforms, but the advice it offers applies to any significant software transition a firm might face, from practice management to document management to client intake tools.

The core of the guide is a pre-migration checklist: audit your current data before you move it, decide what actually needs to migrate versus what can be archived or discarded, assign internal champions who can lead the rollout from the inside and be sure to communicate the "why" to your whole team. While this guide is written by PracticePanther, the advice applies regardless of which software you use.

Why this Matters: The section worth saving for later is the one on metrics: utilization rates, realization rates and collection rates. These are the three numbers that tell you whether your new system actually works. (PracticePanther)

Earlier this year, when Anthropic released some legal plug-ins, the markets tanked as a lot of data analytics, professional services and software companies (in legaltech and beyond) realized they might soon be obsolete. We’re now seeing how those predictions play out as Claude for Legal rolls out a suite of new practice-area plugins and integrations with companies like Thomson Reuters, CourtListener and others. The announcement prompted a wave of breathless commentary about whether lawyers would soon be cancelling their Westlaw and Lexis subscriptions.

Spoiler alert: not yet, at least according to Stephanie Wilkins of Legaltech Hub, who did a deep dive on what the new tools can actually do. 

Why this Matters: The firms with the most to gain from Claude for Legal aren't the ones already paying for Westlaw and Lexis. They're the ones that have been making do with Google Scholar and hoping for the best. For those firms, a stack of lower-cost connectors could close a research gap that’s been frustrating them for years. (Legaltech Hub)

See also: A recording of the webinar that introduced this new suite of services is available on the Anthropic website. 

Legal marketing agency MeanPug took a look at 10,000 law firm websites to answer a question most attorneys have never thought to ask: why do so many legal websites look the same? The answer is: blue. Nearly every legal website out there (including Raise the Bar!) relies on the hue, which is thought to signal trust and authority.

This article has the data on how many firms use other colors, and why you might want to make a switch, depending on your practice area. 

Why this Matters: If your current website looks like every other firm in your market, this could explain why. (MeanPug)

“Serious Trouble” is a weekly legal podcast hosted by Ken “Popehat” White, a former federal prosecutor, and journalist Josh Barro, that takes a high-profile legal controversy and asks if the main character is in actual legal trouble or just a PR crisis. 

While we don't usually recommend podcasts behind a paywall, this one earns an exception. The free feed gives you more than enough to think about, and the paid tier unlocks full episodes, discussion threads and listener Q&A. 

Why this Matters: Whether it's a defamation trial, a First Amendment fight or the latest installment of Washington's ongoing legal chaos, White and Barro cut through the noise without dumbing things down. If you've ever yelled at a legal segment on cable news or lost hours explaining a legal nuance to some keyboard warrior, this show will heal you. (Serious Trouble)

Thanks for reading today's edition! You can reach the newsletter team at [email protected]. We enjoy hearing from you.

Interested in advertising? Email us at [email protected]

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get this newsletter every week.

Raise the Bar is written and curated by Emily Kelchen edited by Bianca Prieto.