The LEAP Profitability in Law: ANZ Insights 2026 is the first report to benchmark law firm profitability across Australia and New Zealand using primary research. It draws on responses from 219 ANZ legal professionals surveyed in November 2025. ANZ reported the highest manual admin burden of any region, the lowest AI adoption rate, and the largest knowledge documentation gap globally. The report quantifies those challenges and identifies where the clearest opportunities are.

This report is written for legal professionals in Australian and New Zealand firms of all sizes. It covers findings relevant to firm principals weighing technology investment decisions, practice managers navigating competing operational demands, and lawyers looking to benchmark their firm's performance against local and international peers. The research covers firms from sole practitioners to organisations with more than 1,000 employees.

The report is organised around four areas: strategy, people and retention, technology and systems, and AI. Strategy covers revenue barriers, cost pressures, and the compliance implications of AML/CTF Tranche 2 for Australian law firms. People and retention covers compensation gaps, burnout, and knowledge documentation. Technology covers platform fragmentation, admin burden, and adoption gaps. AI covers current deployment rates, trust levels, and what's holding adoption back across ANZ.

The report includes dedicated findings on AI adoption across Australian and New Zealand law firms. It covers which use cases firms are currently deploying, where adoption is falling short, and how ANZ compares to the UK, Ireland, the US, and Canada. Only 20% of ANZ legal professionals use legal AI daily — the lowest rate globally — yet three of the top four profitability priorities named by respondents are AI-enabled. The findings give firms a grounded basis for decisions about AI investment.

The findings are specific to Australia and New Zealand. ANZ firms face pricing pressures, admin loads, knowledge retention risks, and questions about AI trust that don't always translate from research conducted in other markets. This report gives you data from 219 local peers, with benchmarks from the UK, Ireland, the US, and Canada for context. It is free to download.

The report covers where Australian and New Zealand law firms stand on AI now. Only 20% use legal AI daily, the lowest rate globally. Three of the top four profitability priorities named by ANZ respondents are AI-enabled use cases: document review, drafting, and legal research. The gap between awareness and adoption is significant, and trust is the primary barrier rather than interest. The findings give firms a grounded picture of where AI is being used, where it isn't, and why.