As leaders from 130 countries convene for the World Economic Forum under the theme “A Spirit of Dialogue,” the legal sector stands at a pivotal crossroads. The five pillars framing this week’s global discussions: 1) cooperation in a contested world; 2) unlocking new sources of growth; 3) investing in people; 4) deploying innovation responsibly; 5) building prosperity within planetary boundaries hold particular urgency for those charting the future of law.

This Davos 2026 series explores select pillars through the lens of AI transformation in law and offers insights on what leaders must do to seize the opportunities ahead. 

Cooperation in a Contested World

The legal sector has long been a critical space for multilateral cooperation. Through bar associations, judicial and legal education networks, and cross-border professional bodies, legal communities have built frameworks for addressing shared challenges—from harmonizing commercial law to advancing human rights to promoting the rule of law across diverse political systems. This tradition of cooperation has shaped both business and social progress globally, fostering mutual understanding even amid geopolitical tension.

The Global Cooperation Barometer 2026, released by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company,¹ reveals that despite fragmentation and geopolitical tensions, global cooperation has proven remarkably resilient—but its form is shifting. Traditional multilateral frameworks are giving way to smaller, more agile coalitions.

Cooperation in law is evolving too and expanding to include new types of coalitions as the AI era of law emerges.  Alongside established professional bodies, a myriad of multistakeholder organizations, innovation networks, and convenings have formed. These agile entities are rapidly becoming critical actors in the innovation ecosystem for AI transformation in law. They shape strategies, allocate resources, forge partnerships, and influence which ideas gain traction. With their focus on innovation and transformation, these forums play a vital role in extending the legal community’s tradition of cooperation in the AI era of law.

Strengthening cooperation in law is now more vital than ever. Geopolitical instability, rising threats to the rule of law, and the rapid pace of AI transformation demand coordinated responses that no single institution or jurisdiction can deliver alone. Moreover, it is essential to maximizing the historic opportunity AI is bringing to build new legal systems, institutions, solutions and products that are more responsive to the needs of people and institutions in today’s world. 

In this context, emerging “new era” coalitions and forums offer key channels for multilateral cooperation across legal sectors as well as cooperation within them. To maximize their impact, especially around AI transformation in law, they must recognize this dimension of their identities and adopt strategies that cultivate it. 

Architecting Legal Cooperation for the AI Era: A Call to Action

The architecture of cooperation in the AI era of law is being built now.  As the new era comes to life, there is an opportunity to shape new norms.  This is a rare window—an architecture moment—to design cooperation mechanisms and innovation ecosystems that maximize  innovation, opportunity, and collaboration.

Three foundational steps are essential:

Integrate Public Purpose 

A commitment to advancing public purpose through AI transformation in law must be intentional and embedded throughout the ecosystem and initiatives regardless of their broader purpose. Without this, cooperation in the new era risks replicating the market-driven dynamics that have historically left the majority of people—the 1.5 billion with unmet legal needs—outside the scope of legal innovation. New cooperation mechanisms must ask not only how AI can make legal services more efficient, but how it can make systems more just.

Consider the current landscape: forums focused on corporate efficiency and innovation labs housed within elite institutions. Meanwhile, court administrators, legal aid providers, and public interest technologists are also convening but separately, with vastly fewer resources, and largely disconnected from the innovation capital and technical expertise concentrated in the private sector. The result is a siloed ecosystem where those with resources to build are not in conversation with those who understand what justice requires, and those closest to the access gap lack the investment and partnerships to build at scale. Public purpose must be a design principle that bridges these divides expanding collaboration between public and private actors, not an afterthought.

Focus on Transformation

Transformation must take center stage in forums on AI in law. AI offers historic potential to reimagine how legal systems operate and what institutions, solutions, and people are needed to fulfill law’s fundamental purpose in societies. Cooperation forums that focus on optimizing for efficiency and economic gain only miss the most significant opportunity of the new era and perhaps for humanity.

Yet the current focus of most cooperation in law remains on point solutions—tools that accelerate document review, streamline contract management, or automate routine tasks within existing workflows. To the extent transformation is discussed, it tends to concentrate on a single segment of the sector, most often corporate practice or courts rather than the ecosystem as a whole. This misses a fundamental reality: law is a highly integrated ecosystem. Courts, regulators, law firms, legal aid providers, law schools, bar associations, and the people they collectively serve are interconnected. Transformation in one segment without coordination across the ecosystem creates friction, widens gaps, and risks leaving the most vulnerable further behind. The ambition must be systemic examining new models for preventing and resolving disputes, new approaches to regulatory compliance, new ways of making law accessible and responsive to human needs across every part of the legal ecosystem.

Catalyze Inclusion 

Of these three foundations, inclusion is the linchpin. Without it, public purpose becomes hollow rhetoric, and transformation is likely to bring financial benefits to few, while excluding the majority from the legal dividends of the new era. The most transformative ideas in the AI era of law will come from leaders closest to the problems the sector must solve. Many of these leaders are absent from forums where innovation takes shape.

The current innovation ecosystem was not designed for inclusion. Our research across 31 countries documents this gap.^² Founders building solutions for unmet legal needs, innovators transitioning from traditional practice or adjacent fields, and leaders operating outside established institutions struggle to access the spaces where cooperation happens. Sixty-seven percent of those we interviewed reported lacking access to mentorship. Over 44 percent cited accessing finance as a barrier. While our research focused on women in legal tech and innovation, whose experiences are particularly stark, it illuminated systemic obstacles that limit participation far more broadly.

As new forums increasingly function as the cooperation infrastructure for the AI era of law, their design choices will determine whether the new era draws on the full range of available talent or replicates the limitations of the sectors it emerges from-law, tech, and finance.

Four barriers limit what new forums can achieve:

Insularity and network dependence Participation in new entities and forums often requires an invitation, and invitations flow through existing relationships. Yet many leaders driving transformation are transitioning from traditional law practice or entering from outside the legal sector entirely. Their established professional networks don’t reach these spaces. Few entities think strategically about the ecosystem as a whole or deliberately convene diverse stakeholders from outside their immediate known networks. As one leader told us, she “lacks contacts and networks to break into the innovation field and feels that her experience is characteristic of law in her country where women in law lack access to professional resources.”

Sector isolation. New cooperation mechanisms replicate longstanding silos within law while remaining disconnected from adjacent fields facing parallel challenges. Healthcare navigates AI diagnostics, finance grapples with algorithmic accountability, education reimagines credentialing. Isolation forecloses opportunities to learn from sectors further along in their AI journeys and limits law’s ability to contribute to collective solutions that integrate law and meet legal needs in new ways. 

Cost. Commercial conferences dominate the AI transformation landscape. Registration fees, travel, and time away from work create barriers for everyone—systematically excluding those building for underserved populations and leaders whose work prioritizes impact over profit.

Environments that signal who belongs. Even when leaders gain access, the environment determines whose voice carries weight. As one participant described: “Panels and conferences tend to include primarily non-diverse men. Women’s voices are drowned.” Without diverse panels, diverse leadership, and intentional structures, forums diminish their own capacity to innovate.

The strategic case is clear: inclusion yields innovation. LawtechUK reports that more than 40 percent of female-founded legal tech companies that raised funding in the first half of 2025 were connected to a LawtechUK program^³ demonstrating the value of structured support. Forums that address these barriers will access the ideas, talent, and market insight their competitors miss.

An Agenda for Davos and Beyond

Davos offers legal leaders an opportunity to begin to architecting cooperation in the AI era of law.  The conversations this week can map steps for building a more intentionally inclusive ecosystem and encourage commitments to carrying those conversations forward.

Seizing the moment requires intention:

Design for ecosystem impact, not just convening.  Consider who needs to be in the room for this forum to achieve its purpose? What perspectives are missing? Deliberate design of diverse stakeholder groups—across sectors, geography, and career stages is needed and promised better outcomes than convening that default to known networks. Active outreach to leaders building outside established institutions is essential.

Build cross-sector collaboration. Step outside the legal sector’s familiar circles. Seek partnerships with healthcare, finance, education, and other fields navigating parallel AI challenges. Davos is an ideal place to initiate these connections.

Design for inclusion. Diverse panels, diverse leadership, transparent participation criteria, subsidized access. These must ground the architecture.

The norms governing legal cooperation in the AI era are being written now in gatherings like this one. The question for legal leaders at Davos this week is whether they will lead the design of an inclusive ecosystem that accesses the full range of available talent, maximizes AI’s transformative potential, and delivers on law’s fundamental promise to serve everyone.

For generations, legal communities have built bridges across borders, systems, and ideologies. The legacy is crucial as the sector faces historic challenges and change and architects an AI era of law. 

Lady Justice Initiative is building the infrastructure to catalyze opportunity for women in the AI era of law. Learn more at www.ladyjusticeinitiative.org.

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1.World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company, “Global Cooperation Barometer 2026,” January 2026, https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-cooperation-barometer-2026

2.Lady Justice Initiative, Inc. Innovating for Equality: Catalyzing Opportunity for Women in Law through Digital Transformation and AI, 2024.

3. Legal Futures. “Legal tech investment hits record level in 2025.” October 14, 2025. https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/legal-tech-investment-hits-record-level-in-2025.