The article argues that lawyers spend too much time consuming legal-only reports and conferences while overlooking rich information about what their business clients actually worry about. It centers on the annual Risk Barometer Report from global insurer Allianz, which identifies what keeps business leaders awake at night and finds that understanding these concerns is essential if lawyers want to be seen as trusted advisors rather than isolated specialists. The author stresses that law firms are businesses too, subject to the same threats as their clients, and that becoming fluent in client risk perceptions is a direct route to being more valuable.
According to the Survey, they believe the top risks to their business are cyber incidents (42%) followed by AI (32%). For US businesses, cyber is also number one, followed by business interruption and legislative change, with artificial intelligence risks in fourth place. The Survey is described as comprehensive, drawing on some 3,338 participants from 23 industry sectors, including customers, risk consultants, underwriters, senior managers, claims experts, and other professionals, and is presented as credible because Allianz needs the data for its own risk planning as much as its insureds do. The article notes that this is the fifth consecutive year cyber risks have led the list, that a decade ago cyber ranked eighth, and that growing reliance on digital technology combined with evolving attack methods explains the sustained rise.
The discussion of cyber risk highlights specific dangers such as cybercrime, IT network and service disruptions, malware and ransomware, data breaches, and regulatory fines and penalties, while emphasizing that artificial intelligence is now supercharging threats by automating attacks and lowering the technical bar for bad actors. The author warns that law firms face the same business interruption scenarios as other companies if key systems like timekeeping and billing are frozen and underscores the sensitivity and value of client data stored in firm systems. The article then turns to artificial intelligence as a standalone risk category, noting that AI risk climbed from number 10 last year to number two this year and was among the top five concerns in every industry, with most expecting the threat to intensify as generative and agentic systems spread. The piece reports that about half of the respondents think the benefits of AI outweigh the risks, about 20% disagree, that most organizations remain in pilot mode despite rising investments and expectations, and that new liability exposures are emerging around automated decision-making, biased or discriminatory models, intellectual property misuse, and unclear responsibility when artificial intelligence outputs cause harm. The author closes by urging lawyers to track reports like Allianz’s, invest in education, retraining, and upskilling around artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, and to step outside the legal echo chamber to better align with client concerns so they can help clients understand, implement, or reject artificial intelligence tools with informed judgment.
