From Courtroom to AI-Native Founder
Our Moderator Ben Chiriboga, began his legal career as a litigator in Miami. A pivotal moment came during a high-stakes case involving complex e-discovery. Facing likely defeat, Chiriboga persuaded his firm to invest in early AI-powered technology. In six hours, the system accomplished what he had been unable to complete in six months.
That experience reshaped his career.
Chiriboga moved into legal technology, becoming part of the founding team at Nexl and later serving as Chief Growth Officer. Over several years, he helped scale the company from four people to a $100 million valuation. Recently, he stepped down to launch reframe.lawyer, a talent platform designed for what he describes as the “AI-native legal industry”.
His thesis is clear: AI is not fundamentally about automation or replacing lawyers. It is about the creation of new roles, new career paths, and ultimately a new class of lawyers.
Technology Revolutions Create New Work
Chiriboga placed the current AI wave in a historical context. Technological revolutions do not simply increase productivity within existing structures; they reshape labour markets entirely.
He pointed to the Industrial Revolution. While farming still exists, only a small fraction of the population now works in agriculture, and the nature of that work has fundamentally changed. The same pattern, he argues, will occur in law.
AI represents an exponential technological shift, not a linear one. The conversation framed as “AI versus lawyers” misses the point. The real transformation lies in adjacent and emerging roles that did not previously exist.
The Rise of Legal-Adjacent Roles
Chiriboga identified three initial categories of emerging opportunity:
1. Business Roles
Lawyers moving into sales enablement, go-to-market, and strategic growth functions within legal technology companies. Firms such as Harvey are offering substantial compensation packages, including equity, to lawyers who can act as translation layers between technical sales teams and legal clients.
2. Product Roles
The growth of legal engineers and “vibe coding” lawyers reflects increasing demand for professionals who understand legal workflows and can help design, build, and validate tools. Law firms themselves are beginning to hire internal legal engineers to develop AI-enabled systems.
3. Operations Roles
Legal operations have already become established in-house. AI is accelerating the need for professionals who can rethink workflows, optimise processes,s and design scalable systems within legal organisations.
These roles are still early-stage. Chiriboga views them as only the beginning of a broader structural evolution.
The Equity Shift
A notable shift concerns financial incentives.
The traditional law firm model requires a long pathway to partnership, often involving capital buy-in and delayed financial return. In contrast, AI-native companies offer equity participation far earlier. For many lawyers, the ability to gain upside within a year rather than after fifteen fundamentally alters career calculations.
Chiriboga observed that lawyers who leave the traditional path often cite one consistent insight: betting on themselves was the best professional decision they made.
Reframe.Lawyer
reframe.lawyer operates on two fronts.
On the front end, it offers structured upskilling. Chiriboga has launched a masterclass designed to help lawyers transition into business, product, or operations roles. He emphasises that lawyers are typically “light” on technical, product, or commercial skills but “deep” in domain expertise.
On the back end, reframe.lawyer aims to connect newly upskilled lawyers with organisations seeking AI-native talent, creating a pipeline between supply and demand.
Chiriboga underscored that skill acquisition has become more accessible and affordable. AI itself can now accelerate learning pathways, making it easier for lawyers to acquire complementary capabilities.
The Inherent Strengths of Lawyers
Chiriboga highlighted three transferable strengths lawyers already possess:
- Systems thinking – the ability to consider multiple interrelated factors simultaneously.
- Sequential reasoning – structured, step-by-step thinking rooted in risk management.
- Deep reflective analysis – comfort with complexity and critical examination.
These qualities provide a strong foundation for transitioning into emerging AI-adjacent roles. Technical skills can be learned; deep legal domain knowledge is harder to replicate.
The Conservative System, and the Curious Individual
Within law firms, structural conservatism often prevails. However, outside rigid hierarchies, lawyers demonstrate considerable curiosity and adaptability.
The individuals engaging with Reframe come from diverse practice areas and backgrounds. What unites them is not role or seniority, but curiosity about what else their experience enables them to do.
The Beginning, Not the End
The traditional legal path is not disappearing. AI will augment many roles, and high-complexity work will continue to command premium rates. However, parallel pathways are expanding rapidly.
Chiriboga’s central argument is not that lawyers will be replaced, but that the definition of a legal career is widening.
AI is not about technology alone. It is about work. It is about opportunity. And for those willing to reframe their careers, it may offer more roles, not fewer.
