How do I stay valuable as a lawyer when AI does the grunt work?

You have already made the shift many of your peers are still afraid of. You let the tools do the mechanical work and stake your worth on the judgment they cannot replace. That is not a retreat. It is a clear read of where a lawyer truly matters. Judgment is the part that was always yours, knowing what a situation really needs, weighing it against a person's real life, and carrying the responsibility for the call. The tools speed up everything around that core, but they cannot touch the core itself. By anchoring your value there, you have made yourself more useful, not less, in the new landscape. Keep sharpening the thing you have staked yourself on. Use the time the tools free up to think harder about the hard calls, to know your clients better, to build the wisdom that only comes from real cases. That investment compounds. It is what keeps you not just employed but genuinely needed.