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AbstractRecent technological developments in automation and artificial intelligence (AI) promise to disrupt the very foundations of how legal work is practised and delivered. Yet how they challenge current business models, where they encounter resistance and how the benefits of AI can be realised remain unexplored. Drawing on interviews with professionals in the UK legal services sector, the article highlights how technological and market pressures combine to challenge the business models of legal services firms. However, the findings reveal important cultural and structural challenges that hamper transformation. The article extends the debate on technological disruption in legal services through a focus on business model innovation as a tool that can support firms in the sector to reimagine legal services provision.

For many years, local economic development has been driven by the desire to maintain, attract and nurture clusters of economic activity in targeted industrial sectors. However, where clusters are not conventionally sector-based, public policy needs to develop alternative approaches to leverage the economic benefits and realise competitive advantage. Drawing on a study of the Sheffield City Region (SCR), the paper explores the challenge of leveraging 'hidden' cross-sectoral clusters, which do not fit dominant discourses of agglomeration-led growth. We posit that it is the cross-sectoral connections and networks in the SCR which represent its key strength, yet these are only partially reflected by current place marketing and policy considerations, and, in many ways, are overlooked and thus remain 'hidden'. The paper argues that the competitive advantage of the SCR is undermined when it characterises clusters in terms of industrial sectors, and instead needs to articulate its strengths as a strategically important industrial centre. The paper concludes by drawing out a number of implications for academic theory and policy development.