“AI will make my lawyers lazy”. AI has its fair share of skeptics – on accuracy, on reliability, and on over-reliance. This is more so in the legal industry, where nuance is crucial and stakes are high. But keeping accuracy aside, we often hear of the risk that lawyers will rely too much on AI and turn lazy in the process.
‘Lawyers have always spent hours nitpicking thousands of pages to extract simple information – if not, how would they learn attention to detail?’
‘Lawyers have always spent late nights sorting and summarizing data rooms – if not, how would they develop the patience to deal with clients?’
‘Lawyers have always scrolled through lengthy contracts and judgements indiscriminately, to draw comparisons or prepare trackers – if not, how would they attain essential legal skills?’
It’s not surprising that when AI claims to smartly automate these very tasks, skeptics worry that we are building a generation of “dumber” or “lazier” lawyers. From there, it’s easy to conclude that lawyers don’t want to work anymore, and they hope for a magic wand, in the shape of AI, to do their ‘hard work’.
This idea is not a novelty. An interesting article recently revealed a 130-year old history of the idea that ‘Nobody wants to work anymore’. AI may be a new technology, but it represents an age-old phenomenon, i.e., a landmark shift in the industry which changes the way we think and work. The cycle is all too familiar – an inevitable change hits the industry – people realize their day-to-day will change, but are unable to predict exactly how – the uncertainty leads to fear – and the fear translates to skepticism.
Let’s take an example from back in 1999. An article from the Clearwater Times in Florida printed a story about Cecil and Henry Lopez, two brothers who wished to sell their shoe repair shop, but couldn’t find a buyer. “Nobody wants to work anymore,” Cecil said. “They all want to work in front of a computer and make lots of money.” We need not elaborate on the utility (and necessity) of computers today, how the shift created new opportunities, and how it made people ‘smarter’. That said, little of these opportunities were known in 1999, so we can’t blame Cecil.
Let’s take a more specific example. Until 20 years ago, a large part of the lawyer’s day involved driving down to the nearest library, and flipping through journals pedantically to find the best judgement. Today, online databases have chalked off 70% of research time, and form the primary means of research. Yet, when the idea was first proposed, skeptics worried that we are building a generation of lazy lawyers.
‘Lawyers have always visited libraries and read through thousands of pages to find the right judgements – if not, how will they attain essential legal skills?’
‘Judgements need to be read in entirety – how can we narrow this down to a ‘keyword’ search? These databases will create a generation of complacent and clueless lawyers’.
Today, a replaceable lawyer is not one who uses an online database, but rather one who can’t use it responsibly or navigate through its limitations. A replaceable lawyer is not one who conducts a ‘keyword’ judgement search, but rather one who stops at that.
The definition of ‘hard work’ is constantly evolving, with frequent developments in technology, changing workflows, and evolving workplace structures. Each new development will require new skill sets, therefore defining new contours of ‘hard work’. AI is no different. Yesterday’s hard work required handwriting contracts, manual bookmarking, and overnights at libraries.
Today’s hard work requires sorting, summarizing, redlining, nitpicking bulk documents, preparing chronologies, fact discovery, and information extraction. With new technologies to streamline these pain points, lawyers can focus on higher value tasks – those which actually require a legal education. Once lawyers are trained to use the right tools responsibly, the industry will inevitably embrace a new point of synergy, improving the legal practice further.
We often ask ourselves the question - do lawyers truly not want to work anymore, or are they craving to work on what actually matters?
“AI will make my lawyers lazy”. AI has its fair share of skeptics – on accuracy, on reliability, and on over-reliance. This is more so in the legal industry, where nuance is crucial and stakes are high. But keeping accuracy aside (which is explored in a separate blog [link]), we often hear of the risk that lawyers will rely too much on AI and turn lazy in the process.
‘Lawyers have always spent hours nitpicking thousands of pages to extract simple information – if not, how would they learn attention to detail?’
‘Lawyers have always spent late nights sorting and summarizing data rooms – if not, how would they develop the patience to deal with clients?’
‘Lawyers have always scrolled through lengthy contracts and judgements indiscriminately, to draw comparisons or prepare trackers – if not, how would they attain essential legal skills?’
It’s not surprising that when AI claims to smartly automate these very tasks, skeptics worry that we are building a generation of “dumber” or “lazier” lawyers. From there, it’s easy to conclude that lawyers don’t want to work anymore, and they hope for a magic wand, in the shape of AI, to do their ‘hard work’.
This idea is not a novelty. An interesting article recently revealed a 130-year old history of the idea that ‘Nobody wants to work anymore’. AI may be a new technology, but it represents an age-old phenomenon, i.e., a landmark shift in the industry which changes the way we think and work. The cycle is all too familiar – an inevitable change hits the industry – people realize their day-to-day will change, but are unable to predict exactly how – the uncertainty leads to fear – and the fear translates to skepticism.
Let’s take an example from back in 1999. An article from the Clearwater Times in Florida printed a story about Cecil and Henry Lopez, two brothers who wished to sell their shoe repair shop, but couldn’t find a buyer. “Nobody wants to work anymore,” Cecil said. “They all want to work in front of a computer and make lots of money.” We need not elaborate on the utility (and necessity) of computers today, how the shift created new opportunities, and how it made people ‘smarter’. That said, little of these opportunities were known in 1999, so we can’t blame Cecil.
Let’s take a more specific example. Until 20 years ago, a large part of the lawyer’s day involved driving down to the nearest library, and flipping through journals pedantically to find the best judgement. Today, online databases have chalked off 70% of research time, and form the primary means of research. Yet, when the idea was first proposed, skeptics worried that we are building a generation of lazy lawyers.
‘Lawyers have always visited libraries and read through thousands of pages to find the right judgements – if not, how will they attain essential legal skills?’
‘Judgements need to be read in entirety – how can we narrow this down to a ‘keyword’ search? These databases will create a generation of complacent and clueless lawyers’.
Today, a replaceable lawyer is not one who uses an online database, but rather one who can’t use it responsibly or navigate through its limitations. A replaceable lawyer is not one who conducts a ‘keyword’ judgement search, but rather one who stops at that.
The definition of ‘hard work’ is constantly evolving, with frequent developments in technology, changing workflows, and evolving workplace structures. Each new development will require new skill sets, therefore defining new contours of ‘hard work’. AI is no different. Yesterday’s hard work required handwriting contracts, manual bookmarking, and overnights at libraries. Today’s hard work requires sorting, summarizing, redlining, nitpicking bulk documents, preparing chronologies, fact discovery, and information extraction. With new technologies to streamline these pain points, lawyers can focus on higher value tasks – those which actually require a legal education. Once lawyers are trained to use the right tools responsibly, the industry will inevitably embrace a new point of synergy, improving the legal practice further.
We often ask ourselves the question - do lawyers truly not want to work anymore, or are they craving to work on what actually matters?
