If you run a small law firm, you probably know this week. A vendor pitches you a new AI tool that promises to save you ten hours a week. A client pushes back on an invoice. A great file comes in and nobody has room to take it. And somewhere in between the calls, the emails and the actual legal work, you’re supposed to figure out where your practice is headed.
That’s exactly the conversation Kimberly Gale, Lawyer and Principal of Gale Law Professional Corporation, will be part of on October 14, when she joins the opening panel at the Canadian Legal Summit: “Running a Small Firm in 2026: What’s Changing—and What Actually Matters”.
The second half of that title is the whole point. There’s no shortage of talk about how the legal profession is changing. Conferences, newsletters and LinkedIn feeds are full of it. What’s much harder to find is a straight answer on which changes deserve a small firm’s time and money, and which ones can safely wait.
Big firms have innovation committees, operations teams and budgets to experiment with. Small and mid-size firms usually don’t. When the person deciding whether to try a new billing model is also the person running a full caseload, every decision has to earn its place. That’s the lens this panel brings.
A lot is changing at once
Part of what makes 2026 feel different is that the pressure is coming from several directions at the same time. AI and automation are changing how legal and administrative work gets done. Clients are expecting more when it comes to speed, pricing and service. In addition, economic pressures are forcing firm leaders to look harder at the financial side of their practices than they may have in the past.
Any one of those would be enough to think about, but together, they can feel overwhelming. The opening panel is designed to pull these apart, look at how they connect, and focus on the choices that actually move the needle for firms operating today.
Where firms are actually making money
The overarching theme in this panel is where small firms are genuinely improving their bottom line right now, and what decisions got them there.
It’s easy to hear that a firm had a great year. It’s far more useful to understand what they changed to get there, and whether that change would work in your own practice.
Pricing, staffing, technology and client service are all levers. Most small firms can’t pull every one of them at once and trying to can leave you spread thin and spending money in places that don’t pay off. Knowing which lever will make the biggest difference to your practice, and having the discipline to focus there, is what separates firms that grow from firms that just stay busy.
Clients expect more, and they’ll leave if they don’t get it
Client expectations around speed, pricing and service have shifted, and firms that don’t keep up lose work. Clients are comparing their experience with a law firm to every other service in their lives. If getting an update or understanding a bill feels harder than it should, they notice.
The panel will dig into what clients are really looking for today and what that means for winning and keeping files in 2026. That goes beyond the quality of the legal work itself. It’s also about how that work is delivered and whether the way a firm operates lines up with what clients now expect from their lawyers.
There’s good news here for smaller practices, too. Being small often means being able to adapt quickly. You don’t need layers of approval to try a new way of communicating with clients or a different approach to pricing. A firm that notices what its clients want and responds can turn that into a real edge over slower-moving competitors.
AI, without the hype
A lot of AI talk never gets past “this will change everything.” That’s not much help when you’re trying to decide what to do on Monday morning. This panel gets specific: how can AI and automation cut down on administrative time so a firm can take on more work without adding headcount?
For a small practice, that’s a capacity question. Every hour spent on admin is an hour that isn’t going toward clients, business development or simply getting home at a reasonable time. If some of that work can be reduced, a firm can handle more without making the leap to another hire before it’s ready.
The panel will also take on a decision more and more firm leaders are wrestling with: should you buy an existing tool or build something of your own? It sounds like a technical question, but it’s really a business one. It touches cost, time, control and how well a solution fits the way your firm actually works.
A few questions to think about before October 14
One of the best ways to get value out of a panel like this is to show up with your own practice in mind! Before the Summit, it’s worth taking a few minutes to ask yourself some honest questions.
Where did your firm’s profit really come from last year, and where did it quietly leak away? If you raised your rates or changed how you bill, how would your best clients react? How much of your week goes to work that doesn’t need a lawyer, or even a person, to do it? And if you had the capacity to take on twenty percent more files tomorrow, would you know where they’d come from?
There are no universal right answers to any of these. A family law practice, a two-lawyer corporate boutique and a growing litigation firm are going to land in very different places. Having your own answers in the back of your mind makes it much easier to hear what’s relevant and important in the discussion.
Why this one is worth your time
Handling disruption well doesn’t mean chasing every new product or reacting to every headline. It means stepping back, figuring out which changes can make a meaningful difference, and making deliberate choices about where to adapt. For active firms, those choices can become a genuine competitive advantage.
If you run a small or mid-size firm, manage one, or you’re thinking about starting your own, this is a conversation you’ll want to hear, so be sure to bring your questions!
Catch Kimberly Gale on the opening panel at the Canadian Legal Summit on October 14, 2026.