Closing Out the 2025 Conference Season at The Masters Conference

Nebula at The Masters Conference: Discovery 2035

This thought discussion reinforced the key themes we’ve been seeing throughout the year: AI is transforming discovery, workplace communication is evolving, and legal teams need to be prepared for the realities of 2035. Industry leaders Tim Thames (RP Legal Group), Jeff Ruetten (Freeman Mathis & Gary), and Jesse Torres (McDermott Will & Schulte) explored how these trends will reshape discovery and the role of legal teams over the next decade.

How Workplace Communication Is Changing

The discussion opened with a look at the future of corporate communication. By 2035, email is expected to play a much smaller role in day-to-day collaboration. Instead, platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom chat, and project management tools will generate the majority of discoverable data.

Younger generations already favor short, fragmented forms of communication, such as voice notes, reactions, and brief messages spread across multiple channels. Reconstructing a complete narrative from these sources will be increasingly difficult without advanced technology.

This is where platforms like Nebula come into play - helping legal teams collect, normalize, and contextualize modern data sources so conversations can be understood as complete stories, not isolated messages.

The Legal Team of 2035

Discovery teams will be far more multidisciplinary. Attorneys will remain central to strategy and judgment, but they’ll increasingly work alongside platform operations specialists, data engineers, and legal technologists who understand how to design, supervise, and validate technology-driven workflows.

Generative AI will no longer be experimental; it will be operational. Rather than replacing legal roles, AI will reshape them, increasing demand for professionals who can validate AI-generated insights, oversee governance and defensibility programs, and translate technology outputs into sound legal decisions.

Nebula Document Review Accelerators

As modern data sources continue to evolve, discovery workflows will shift away from document-by-document review toward reconstructing narratives across large, complex datasets. In this model, technology handles scale and pattern recognition, while humans guide strategy, confirm privilege boundaries, and apply legal judgment.

Earlier Insight and Changing Economics

As automation matures, billing models will continue to evolve. The panel predicted further movement toward subscription pricing, outcome-based fees, and hybrid models that blend technology with expert oversight. Value will be measured less by volume and more by predictability, judgment, and defensibility.

Early Case Assessment will also become significantly more predictive. With scalable analytics, legal teams will be able to assess risk, develop case theories, and forecast costs far earlier in the lifecycle; often within hours instead of weeks.

Looking Ahead to 2035

While workflows and tools will change, core legal principles will not. Authenticity, chain of custody, contextual integrity, and ethical responsibility will remain central to discovery.

Technology will continue to accelerate the process, but attorneys will retain accountability for interpretation, strategy, and client guidance. Platforms like Nebula are built with these fundamentals in mind; supporting innovation without compromising trust.

Preparing for What’s Next

Discovery is accelerating as enterprise data grows more complex and technology becomes more deeply embedded in legal work. The role of legal teams will increasingly focus on guiding technology; not competing with it.

Nebula is committed to helping teams prepare for this future by supporting modern data sources, scalable insight, and defensible workflows.

If you’d like to learn how Nebula can support your team today and help you prepare for what’s ahead, schedule a demo to see the platform in action.

Closing Out 2025

This session also marked the close of an exciting year on the road for Nebula. In 2025, we attended 21 events across the U.S. and the U.K., connecting with legal and technology professionals around the globe.

To everyone who joined us; thank you for the conversations, questions, and continued support. And congratulations to those lucky enough to snag one of our coveted Nebula astronauts; over 500 found new homes this year.

We’re grateful for the community and excited to keep the momentum going in 2026.