The future of international law won’t be shaped by artificial intelligence alone. It’ll be shaped by how confidently, responsibly, and strategically legal professionals use it.
That was the central theme of the 2026 Future Ready Lawyer Series webinar session, “Building Confidence in an AI Era - Future of International Law,” held on May 19, 2026. Moderated by Suzanne Konstance, GM, Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US, the expert conversation featured Stephanie Walter, VP & GM, Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory Germany, and Gary Born, Partner and Chair of the International Arbitration Practice Group at WilmerHale.
Born, widely regarded as a leading authority on international commercial arbitration and international litigation and author of International Law in American Courts, brought a practitioner’s view of how technology may affect complex cross-border legal work. Together, the speakers explored what it means to be future-ready when AI is moving from experimentation into daily legal practice.
Trust is the foundation of AI adoption
The session’s framing made one point clear: confidence in AI can’t come from novelty or speed. It must come from trust.
For legal professionals, trust means knowing how AI tools work, where their limits sit, and how outputs should be reviewed. This matters even more in international law, where lawyers often navigate multiple jurisdictions, legal systems, languages, procedural rules, and business contexts.
AI can improve access to information, speed up research, and assist with analysis. But confidence depends on more than technical capability. Legal teams need trusted content, transparent workflows, secure systems, and clear policies for how AI gets used.
The practical takeaway: future-ready legal teams shouldn’t treat AI as a shortcut. They should treat it as a capability that needs structure, oversight, and disciplined use.
Human judgment remains the lawyer’s advantage
A key insight from the discussion was the continued importance of human judgment. AI can process information at scale, but it doesn’t replace the lawyer’s role in assessing relevance, risk, strategy, and consequence.
In international disputes, this distinction is critical. Arbitration and litigation require more than legal data. They require advocacy, procedural awareness, cultural understanding, negotiation skills, and strategic judgment. AI may help lawyers prepare more efficiently, but lawyers remain accountable for the advice they give and the decisions they recommend.
This creates a new professional balance. Lawyers don’t need to reject AI to preserve their value. They need to know when to rely on it, when to challenge it, and when human expertise must lead.
Cross-border practice raises the stakes
International law is a natural test case for AI adoption because cross-border work often involves complexity at scale. Legal professionals may need to compare laws across jurisdictions, manage multilingual materials, analyze large document sets, and respond to fast-changing regulatory expectations.
AI can help reduce friction in these workflows. It can make information easier to find, patterns easier to spot, and routine work easier to manage. But cross-border legal practice also raises harder questions about confidentiality, data protection, bias, explainability, and local legal nuance.
For multinational organizations and their advisers, AI governance can’t be generic. It must reflect the legal, regulatory, and ethical demands of the matters at hand.
Governance turns innovation into confidence
The conversation also pointed to the need for strong governance. Legal teams need more than access to AI tools. They need a clear operating model.
That includes:
- Policies that define acceptable AI use
- Training that builds AI literacy across legal teams
- Review processes for AI-assisted work
- Security standards for sensitive information
- Clear accountability for final legal outputs
Without governance, AI adoption can create uncertainty. With governance, it can build confidence, consistency, and trust.
This is where legal leaders have an important role to play. They must set expectations, create guardrails, and encourage responsible experimentation. The goal isn’t to slow innovation. It’s to make innovation reliable enough for high-stakes legal work.
The future-ready lawyer is both digital and discerning
The session reinforced that the future-ready lawyer won’t be defined only by technical fluency. They’ll combine digital awareness with legal discipline.
That means understanding AI’s potential but also recognizing its limits. It means using technology to improve efficiency while protecting professional standards. It means asking better questions, validating outputs, and keeping client interests at the center of every decision.
For international lawyers, this skill set will become increasingly important. Clients will expect speed, insight, and cost discipline. They’ll also expect accuracy, judgment, and accountability. AI can help meet those expectations, but only when lawyers use it with care.
Looking ahead
“Building Confidence in an AI Era - Future of International Law” captured a defining challenge for the legal profession. AI is changing how lawyers work, but it’s also sharpening the value of the qualities that have always mattered: trust, judgment, ethics, and accountability.
The path forward isn’t about choosing between technology and expertise. It’s about integrating both. For international lawyers, confidence will come from knowing how to use AI effectively while preserving the professional judgment that clients, courts, and counterparties continue to rely on.
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