Hartford Business Journal

16 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JUNE 1, 2026 Coverage for doctors, by doctors. Coverage for doctors, by doctors. Comprehensive medical professional liability coverage tailored to meet your practice needs. Scan to Request a Quote Explore coverage options and member benefits Continuing Medical Education Credits Risk Management Assessments, & more Legacy Reward & Dividend Programs Pricing Reset AI-driven efficiencies force law, accounting firms to rethink the billable hour to expand their client base without adding as many employees as tradi- tionally would be required. Andrews said it has not yet been demonstrated that AI will lead to lower bills for clients, particularly because firms are incurring new technology expenses. Whittlesey spends about $30,000 annually on AI products, he said. "You're going to replace personnel costs with technology costs," he added. New expectations Law firms are confronting similar questions. Zarella, of McCarter & English, said some clients — particularly those using AI in their own businesses — now expect law firms to use the technology where appropriate and pass along at least some of the resulting efficiencies. "As clients (become) educated on the tools and what they're capable of and how reliable they are, I think they'll set their expectations accordingly, and some have started to do that," Zarella said. Some clients are increasingly reluc- tant to pay for deposition summaries and document review — work histor- ically handled by junior attorneys, paralegals or contract staff, he said. At Connecticut law firm Pullman & Comley, Chair Lee Hoffman said similar conversations are emerging. "It's the clients who have adopted AI tools on their own and see the benefits who have said: 'You should really be using this,'" Hoffman said. Still, hourly billing remains dominant. Hoffman noted that the billable hour itself is a relatively recent develop- ment in legal history, taking hold largely in the 1970s and 1980s as corporations demanded more detailed accounting of legal costs. "Fast-forward to now and I think that you're going to have the same thing in reverse," Hoffman said, adding that the shift to new billing models will be driven by the demands of clients and the marketplace. But AI adoption in legal practice remains complicated. Pullman & Comley has spent the past two years working to integrate AI while addressing concerns about By Michael Puffer mpuffer@hartfordbusiness.com F or decades, the billable hour has been the revenue generation engine of law and accounting firms. Artificial intelligence is begin- ning to upend that model. As AI tools dramatically reduce the time needed for legal research, tax strategy and document review, Connecticut professional services firms are rethinking how they charge clients. If AI can complete in minutes work that once took hours, what should clients be paying for? Firms say that question is no longer theoretical. "At our firm, like lots of other firms, we can't ignore the inevitable chal- lenges that AI could pose to revenue models," said Peter Zarella, a partner at law firm McCarter & English, which employs about 400 attorneys across nine offices, including two in Connecticut. "Where you're billing by the hour and there's a tool out there that can make things take less time, that certainly has implications as to whether you're going to be able to maintain the same level of revenue and profitability." MahoneySabol, a Glaston- bury-based accounting and advisory firm, began charging premium billing rates in early 2026 for work performed using AI-powered research systems. The change reflects the value of the work rather than the time consumed, said Michael Sabol, co-founder of the 70-person firm. Research tasks that once took 90 minutes can now take 15, he said. "We have a different rate when we're using those AI tools," Sabol said. "Just because it took us less time doesn't mean it's not as valuable as it was when it took us an hour-and-a-half to research it. If we are purely just charging on the time we spent, I think we're underpricing the value of what we're doing." Drew Andrews, managing partner and CEO of Hartford-based accounting firm Whit- tlesey, said AI recently shaved as much as 10 hours off the creation of a complex tax strategy for a client. "It took probably a couple hours because of the way we were tooling it, and prompting it," Andrews said. The technological leap will allow firms to complete more work in fewer hours, Andrews said, but he doesn't expect it will necessarily reduce staffing. Instead, it could ease the constant pressure to hire by allowing firms Michael Sabol, co-founder of CPA firm MahoneySabol, says AI is reshaping how accounting firms price their services. HBJ Photo | Steve Laschever Drew Andrews Lee Hoffman

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