At IBA conference, Freshfields, White & Case, WongPartnership and Mallesons say AI adoption matters more than an arms race; WongPartnership chooses buy over build

Leaders of four global firms at the IBA Annual Conference argued adoption beats tool-building. WongPartnership said it deliberately buys rather than builds, citing Harvey, Legora, Google and Anthropic as better placed; White & Case built AI context files from interviews with top lawyers. Freshfields' Alan Mason: "The key thing we are absolutely focused on is adoption." WongPartnership's Wai King Ng: "It is very hard for us to try and compete and to do something, where Harvey, Legora, Google and Anthropic will be able to do so much better than we can do as a small firm."