By John Murph
Propelled by the advent of emerging technologies, the legal profession is undergoing a seismic shift, where lawyers are challenged to blend legal expertise with business acumen and digital literacy. In this new ecosystem, agility, efficiency, and the ability to innovate are no longer optional skills but core requirements for success in legal practice.
Looking ahead to 2026, Washington Lawyer checked in with several members of the D.C. Bar Board of Governors for their reflections on where the legal profession is headed and what they are excited about in their work in the coming year.
Amanda C. Molina | Microsoft
As corporate counsel in the cloud and AI division at Microsoft and as assistant judge advocate general in the United States Air Force Reserve Corps, Amanda C. Molina is particularly interested in breakthroughs in quantum computing. “I’m investigating how this is going to shift different industries,” says Molina, treasurer-elect of the Bar.
There is, for example, Microsoft’s Majorana 1, considered to be the world’s first quantum processor chip. Molina says she is writing about quantum finance for the American Society for AI, a private nonprofit organization that brings together prominent people on a mission to create a better world with AI. She is also watching closely advancements in legal AI tools and consumer demand for more data personalization.
“We are living in this very hyper-personalized space, where all of our data is bought and sold,” Molina says. “So, people are used to having things personalized. But right now, our AI tools are not that personalized. Most models are generic. So, a lot of the worry from the legal profession, both from the military and civilian side, is data privacy. Who is taking the data? What is happening to it? When it goes into those neural networks, what is actually happening?”
In the legal profession, where lawyers are constantly handling extremely sensitive information, “we are looking at ways of protecting that data in a way that would help lawyers feel a little bit more comfortable with using these tools,” Molina continues.
In terms of future AI regulation in the United States, Molina predicts passage of legislation similar to the European Union’s AI Act that is not punishment-oriented but incentivizing. “I say that because the [current] administration is very much trying to support innovation,” Molina says. From a regulatory perspective, Molina says the U.S. government tends to be very responsive. “When something really bad occurs, we react,” she adds.
What Molina foresees as mostly changing in her practice and shifting in almost every sector is AI governance. “AI governance and its implications in data privacy and cybersecurity are broadly expanding, not just on the regulatory and compliance front, but in general. [AI governance is] expanding in how we build our internal systems to operate with these new tools and these new business models that are adapting to the AI tools. I think it is really exciting.”
Andrea Mangones | Kids in Need of Defense
Andrea Mangones, director of legal training and technical assistance at Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), is all for exploring the pros and cons of generative artificial intelligence such as large language models. “I think every single area of law needs to be exploring generative AI in the upcoming year; that’s not exclusive to immigration law,” says Mangones, who was elected in June for a second term on the Board of Governors.
KIND provides unaccompanied children with innovative, holistic care that includes legal representation and psychosocial support. “Holistically, many people seeking humanitarian immigration legal services have a lot of other needs that are not legal in nature,” Mangones says. “It’s a very scary time where it is difficult to access things like health care and education, and it’s hard to focus on a legal case if your basic needs are not being met.”
“Being on an interdisciplinary team that includes social work professionals not only meets clients’ needs better, it [also] makes me a better lawyer. Being able to understand the needs of the human being in front of me from a different lens, from a social-work lens, helps me to ask better questions,” Mangones says. “I think everyone can benefit from being on interdisciplinary teams. Whatever the legal service outcome, goal, or client, there is almost certainly another professional that has key expertise, a different perspective, that can enhance that service.”
With immigration in a state of flux — “both in terms of the laws, policies, and practices impacting clients, as well as the funding for services and the stability of the organizations and the field as a whole” — Mangones says one of her aspirations in 2026 is to find creative ways to provide critical help for vulnerable populations.
“Thinking through what these services are going to look like a year from now is really challenging. Resources are way more limited than they have been in the recent past. The need for services is higher than ever,” Mangones says. “Generative AI can be a transformational technology to do more with less if there are proper guardrails, if the risks are accounted for thoroughly, if the technology is leveraged in a way that maintains and protects clients’ safety, especially immigrant clients.”
In the coming year, Mangones vows to continue to support the fight to close the access to justice gap. “[Considering] the reality of legal need and the number of legal professionals in D.C. and nationwide, the gap is far too big,” she says. “It’s far too big to be met through individual pro bono services. If I could wave a wand and completely structurally change [our] legal system, [I would make] large-scale changes to the way that people access their basic legal needs. Our legal systems are not designed for everyday people to navigate them. They need to be simpler; they need to be more straightforward; they need to be designed to empower and get to the just outcome.”
Shirley Diaz | Diaz Vidales PLLC
As a lawyer who runs her own estate planning practice, Shirley Diaz is a little reticent about use of AI in law. While Diaz uses ChatGPT to write scripts for her social media reels or to respond to email inquiries, she says she doesn’t rely on the technology for drafting legal documents.
“I use AI regularly for the administrative and marketing side of my practice — things like drafting emails, captions, or scripts for social media,” Diaz says. “For legal work, though, the technology isn’t there yet. I’ll sometimes use it to help me craft better search strings and to reduce research time, or as an editor to refine my own writing. But when it comes to substantive drafting or analysis, it still falls short.”
At Diaz Vidales PLLC, “I specifically focus on new families — people who have just had kids and want to make sure that if anything happens to them, their kids are still protected,” Diaz explains. “So, it’s not necessarily like end-of-life planning. We are seeing a trend of much younger people making their estate plan, whereas in the past it used to be something reserved for the ultra-high-net-worth individuals.”
Prior to becoming a lawyer, Diaz worked as the national director of finance for the Lambda Phi Xi Multicultural Sorority and as an analyst for Goldman Sachs. Diaz says she’s one of the few estate planning attorneys who provide a cross-disciplinary package of services.
“I’m creating cross-services,” Diaz says. “You don’t need a lawyer to create a college savings plan or open a brokerage account for your child … but I walk parents through how to open all of these other financial accounts that they will hold in trust for their children in addition to creating the actual family trust that holds the parents’ assets. So, it is kind of like providing additional holistic services for clients.”
As an estate planning lawyer who also specializes in financial guidance and literacy, Diaz says she was following closely developments regarding the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s increased estate tax exemption, which will sunset at the end of 2025. “With the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, [it’s] confirmed that the estate tax [exemption] is going to continue to stay high … That [was] a big concern for a lot of estate planning lawyers.”
On the changing legal profession, Diaz hopes to see the return soon of the apprenticeship model for training up lawyers. “I think back to when I started as a lawyer. I would be in the office and sit in on calls with the partners. I would be able to ask questions after. I do not see that really happening anymore,” Diaz says. “So, I want new attorneys to get matched up with at least one, if not more, attorneys in their practice area so that they can sit in and learn.”
Bennett Rushkoff | The Platt Group Inc.
Last May, Bennett Rushkoff retired from the D.C. Office of Administrative Hearings after nearly nine years of service. But instead of slowing down, he switched his D.C. Bar membership to active status, ran for the D.C. Bar Board of Governors, and joined a dispute resolution and mediation firm. “I realized that retiring would allow me the time to continue addressing these access-to-justice issues, but on a broader scale,” Rushkoff says. “So I thought about becoming more involved with the D.C. Bar.”
A day before the July 2025 Board of Governors meeting, Rushkoff took the Mandatory Course on the D.C. Rules of Professional Conduct and Practice. “It was refreshing to be welcomed back to the [active] practice of law,” he says. “It made me feel young again.”
Before becoming an administrative law judge specializing in public benefits, Rushkoff worked in three attorneys general offices and had a three-year stint as a staff attorney with the Federal Trade Commission. Rushkoff says he has dedicated his career to public service and wants to continue to do so in a new way.
As a Board of Governors member, Rushkoff wants to encourage pro bono participation while also addressing some of the systemic roadblocks in the justice system. “Throughout my 40-year career, I’ve seen the profession striving to do more pro bono work. And despite our best efforts, we have been unable to offer lawyers to more than a small fraction of the people who need legal help,” Rushkoff says.
“So, while we continue the push to increase the profession’s engagement in pro bono work, maybe we can also push the whole judicial system in the direction of making it easier for people who are unrepresented to get a fair hearing,” he adds.
In 2026 Rushkoff hopes to return to solo practice specializing in consumer protection law. “Nonprofit standing to bring cases under D.C.’s consumer protection law is still relatively new. There aren’t too many lawyers doing it,” he explains. “But rather than think up novel cases on my own, I’d like to collaborate with nonprofits in D.C. that work with consumers and may be the first to recognize patterns of deceptive or unconscionable behavior in the market. These organizations should be aware of and consider the option of bringing consumer protection cases as plaintiffs.”
Louis Lopez | AARP Foundation
Louis Lopez, vice president of litigation at the AARP Foundation, brings to the Board of Governors 23 years of experience working in various federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as well service as former president of the Hispanic Bar Association of the District of Columbia. Lopez’s work is focused on consumer protection and labor and employment law.
“I know that government lawyers are a large population of the … D.C. Bar, and I have a strong affinity for those groups,” Lopez says. “I’m hoping that we can provide protections, guidance, and help for them during this tumultuous period.”
Lopez is also passionate about looking for ways to safeguard protections for workers. “The avenues by which particularly vulnerable workers can access the justice system in meaningful ways … are limited because litigation, particularly for multiplaintiff cases, is expensive,” Lopez continues. “So, I’m excited about studying that issue to see if there are ways that we can make gains to safeguard employment protections. I’m hopeful that we can protect the class action route for plaintiffs because I think it’s a really effective tool.”
Generally, Lopez understands the importance of AI tools to improve efficiency in the practice of law. “Some organizations are using AI to summarize depositions or to draft initial arguments for legal briefs. From what I understand, there have been different levels of success in those approaches, but one big takeaway is that it’s important to always keep a human in the loop,” he says.
However, Lopez is concerned about the possible negative impacts of algorithmic implicit bias in large language models on non-English speakers. “At the American Bar Association, I am chair of the Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibilities, and we recently did a three-part series on language access,” Lopez says.
“We talked about the benefits of that technology to make it very timely and cost-effective to provide legal services in the native language of the client. But we also talked about some of the concerns about cultural bias … and about the lack of Indigenous languages … in the AI models,” Lopez says. “We talked about the potential for nonattorneys or unscrupulous actors to take advantage of less sophisticated clients. And so, we just want to be careful about how we use it.”
Reach D.C. Bar staff writer John Murph at [email protected].
