South Carolina attorneys face AI and cybersecurity shifts

Among the concerns facing South Carolina attorneys are two letters that are also causing disruption and innovation across the business world — AI.

When asked about trends in the legal sector this year, SC500 attorneys from around the state named artificial intelligence as one of the biggest challenges facing the practice of law at all levels. The concerns range from how and when firms employ artificial intelligence to the many ethical issues that the technology brings with it.

Leading attorneys from around the state also named several other issues facing the profession this year, including a rapidly changing and fluctuating judicial environment and the challenge of keeping attorneys and legal staff up to date and trained in the newest available technology.

A look at some of the issues attorneys are talking about in 2026:

Artificial intelligence. The legal sector, like everyone else in the business world, is dealing with the ongoing advance of artificial intelligence. The technology in some instances can help improve efficiency in legal offices and streamline research, but as it always seems to be with AI, there’s a catch.

“AI tools that may increase efficiency may also raise legal questions around confidentiality, privilege, accuracy and professional responsibility,” said Sheila Abron, an employment and labor attorney with Fisher Phillips in Columbia. “Additionally, the utilization of AI by clients is changing the scope of evidentiary issues, documentation and in many instances, given AI ‘hallucinations,’ can lead to misinformation.”

AI already is affecting the way law firms do business and will continue to do so in the future, according to C. Pierce Campbell, CEO and attorney at the Turner Padget firm in Florence.

“Attorneys must determine how to use AI ethnically and appropriately, what AI tools are best suited for the practice of law, and how to use AI to bring additional value to their representation of clients,” Campbell said. “This rapidly changing environment is affecting how we practice law, how we operate our firms and the expectations of our clients.”

The one thing law firms of any size can’t do is ignore AI, according to James Buxton, founding partner and business law attorney at Buxton & Collie of Mount Pleasant.

“Attorneys face a choice: ignore the technology shift at your own peril or go all-in on retraining your skill set,” Buxton said. “My firm’s employees are required to get baseline certification in AI skills throughout our technology stack. We would rather they be overtrained and be able to critique the tools than to simply have the technology happen to them.”

Cybersecurity

Keeping information systems secure in a world of rapidly changing technology and ongoing cybersecurity threats is also something law firms will increasingly have to focus on in 2026.

“With expanding privacy laws and increasing cyber threats, organizations are navigating a patchwork of regulations while trying to protect sensitive data,” said Abron of Fisher Phillips. “Legal teams are playing a central role in incident response planning and risk mitigation.”

Technology companies and the law

South Carolina’s economy is growing as a whole, and technology firms are taking an ever larger role. Douglas Kim, an intellectual property attorney with Kim, Lahey and Killough in Greenville said this will require these firms to increasingly learn about and negotiate the different legal issues integral to the technology sector.

“More companies in this state are developing technology — software platforms, advanced manufacturing processes, etc. — that has fundamentally changed the type of legal counsel they need,” Kim said. “These companies need industry-specific contracts, subscriptions, licensing, vendor, development, sales, terms and conditions that are specific to their business.”

While technology companies need to learn about their specific legal needs, law firms will also increasingly need to learn about the tech sector if they want to gain these companies as clients.

“Technology companies expect their lawyers to speak their language,” Kim said. “They want practical guidance that reflects real-world development cycles — not abstract legal theory. That expectation is reshaping legal services and how lawyers interact with their clients. … Looking forward, I believe the firms that succeed in South Carolina will be those that combine strong technical and business understanding with genuine technical fluency and strategic judgment.”

Regulatory issues and compliance. The federal regulatory and judicial landscapes are both in flux, Abron said, a phenomenon that is creating consistent uncertainty in areas like employment law, environmental regulation and civil rights enforcements.

“These changes can swiftly impact compliance obligations,” Abron said.

There is also a growing emphasis nationwide on workplace investigations and compliance, particularly in areas tied to harassment, discrimination and Title IX, she said.

“Institutions and employers are under pressure to demonstrate not just compliance, but fairness, transparency and consistency,” Abron said. “This has elevated the importance of well-trained investigators and strong collaboration between legal, HR and compliance teams.”

Mergers and acquisitions. Buxton expects merger and acquisitions activity across the legal sector that picked up in 2025 to continue to increase in 2026.

“There is still a lot of capital in action in private equity, and the passage of recent new tax law has been a structural accelerant for deal activity because it provides tax planning certainty for acquirors, particularly for leveraged buy-out or asset-heavy acquisitions,” Buxton said. “High interest rates are still a headwind, but there should be good reason to believe deal activity should be robust for the near- and mid-term.”