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Ask any of the models a somewhat nuanced legal question that hasn’t been answered in a legal blog asking for key cases with citations. Read the cases it lists in its response and see just how far off its understanding of those cases is. Feel better.
There’s probably a comparable test for non-litigation as well.
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If you’re a junior, you better get good fast or find a niche practice with adequate moat.
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Nahh even if you are a “good” junior AI is a machine it is better
Subject Expert
Have you actually spent extensive time using these tools?
Mentor
AI will never fully replace a skilled and knowledgeable attorney because so much of what we do is CYA for our clients.
But it’ll do what all tech has done throughout time—force increased productivity. This means we will run leaner. That’s the real impact of AI, and it’s a real danger to the associate classes in BL.
Get good at doing the most sophisticated high stakes work you can.
Also, as someone who has had frank conversations with firm leadership about this, I think current associates are largely safe. Incoming classes will shrink, but I don’t see any RIFs of associates on the horizon. Support staff may be cut further. Incoming associate classes may shrink. But current associates will probably just leave based on normal attrition
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Plaintiffs bar will use AI to create more work for us to do
AI raises the floor but doesn’t impact the celling.
Use of AI is only optimized when you can give effective prompts and know when to push back for more precise and accurate answers.
Exactly. It’s an incredible force multiplier for an experienced subject matter expert. The output is only as good as the input (at best) and it’s only useful if you can easily evaluate it critically.
I can tell you from a corporate mid-level’s perspective: I can easily replace 50% of what I used to ask juniors a year ago with AI today. And sometimes I do if I’m on a time crunch. But then there’ll be nobody to help me when I actually need a competent junior. So I always end up giving the juniors work I could ask ai to do to train them to be useful. I gather this is what is happening at a macro level too: firms will always need mid levels and senior associates because ai is and will always be terrible at making judgment calls on matters important enough for client to fork over $1500+ an hour for an associate’s time. The only way to get a mid level is to invest in a junior. Law schools don’t produce mid levels, so although I see slightly lower demand out of law schools, biglaw will always continue to hire juniors and will never get rid of all associates: remember, partners are also cogs in the biglaw machine and law schools don’t churn out partners either. You need mid levels to get seniors and you needs seniors to get partners
AI will lead to a shift in power from transactional/corporate to litigation. The latter requires more human intervention/judgment at various places in the workflow so there will be more reps for associates. Training of jr associates will decline because SKILLFULLY working with AI is so much better than working with a mediocre junior. Being mediocre as a junior ain’t gonna cut it anymore
My normal workflow is telling an associate what arguments I want made and the key guidance to use and then they draft an initial outline for us to discuss. I am finding that AI is MUCH more efficient for the early stages here. In the time it would take me to explain what I want to an associate I can have prompted the AI, went back and forth with it 8 times to refine and have an outline ready to start drafting a brief, opinion or memo from. It’s a faster, more efficient iterative process for me than doing the same work with an associate because the AI works almost instantly. That compensates for each pass being worse than the draft and associate would prepare over the course of a few days. The associates still need to write the final product (and check citations from the ai, but I am finding better ways to do that even with AI) but they are definitely losing hours and experience not working on the earlier stages.
I don’t think the AI can actually write a good brief, memo or opinion yet, but it’s going to get there eventually and that becomes dangerous. Once the draft is good enough to overcome the blank page issue, a senior partner can probably do what would have been a 3 week project with a team of associates on their own in a day.
Support staff will be the first to go, they are bloated in numbers already, especially recruitment, BD and other areas
I find that many tasks actually take longer when I start with AI to get over the “blank page” barrier. It does FEEL like the AI is helping, but it usually isn’t. (I agree that it can cut significant time on certain menial tasks)