Law has one of the strongest "unions" in the form of the Bar Association, backed by legal force. You cannot practice law without "passing they bar" as they say. The lawyers who operate the Bar can just decide they wont be replaced and then they wont, AI will remain a tool used by human lawyers.
Allow me to explain a contrarian position. Judges favor individuals that use an expensive lawyer for representation, even if there isn't much of a legal argument to be made. Judges give such individuals a far better deal. The reason for this is that hiring an expensive lawyer shows that you've paid homage to the legal profession with your wallet, that you support the systemic judicial-attorney-penalty complex. It grants you favors.
If now you were to come forward with an AI lawyer, in practice it'll be almost as if you didn't use a lawyer at all, as if you were representing yourself, which will get you the worst possible deal, if any. Things shouldn't be this way at all, but the system is crooked, and so they are this way.
As such, I think some lawyers are going away, but not all. The ones who stand in court will have business.
It’s an interesting theory, but I had to downvote as you didn’t provide any references for your bold assertion. Is there data that bears this out? And even if there were, how could it be distinguished from more expensive lawyers simply doing better at representing their clients?
> I mention the problem of ‘hallucinations’ – when an AI model presents false or fabricated information as factual – and the need for a human face in court. The Sandie Peggie judgment allegedly contained AI-made errors. He waves this all away. ‘Temporary bugs and sentimental preferences. The economic argument is overwhelming.’
As usual with "AI replacing humans", the key thing to consider here is accountability.
I want to get my legal advice from someone who is accountable for that advice, and is willing to stake their professional reputation on that advice being correct.
An LLM can never be accountable.
I don't want an LLM for a lawyer. I want a lawyer armed with LLMs, who's more effective than the previous generations of lawyers.
(I'd also like them to be cheaper because they take less time to solve my problems, but I would hope that means they can take on more clients and maintain a healthy income that way even as each client takes less time.)
The closing paragraph of that story:
> ‘My niece is a lovely girl, really smart, great at school, and the other day she told me she wants to be a lawyer. And I thought, “Oh my God, my little niece wants to be a lawyer”, and I flat out told her. I said please do not destroy your life. Do not get into a lifetime of debt for a job that won’t exist in ten years. Or less.’
Uh oh. Here we go again, with the "don't bother studying computer science, it's 2002, all the jobs will be outsourced to cheaper countries in the next few years!". So glad I didn't listen to that advice back then!
A person let's their case be argued by ChatGPT Esq. At sentencing:
"Your honor, the death penalty for a traffic ticket?"
AI will never replace humans in this capacity. Lawyers may be scummy but most people would take a slimeball lawyer over a hallucinating, sycophantic "AI" pretending to be both a human and a lawyer. This reads more like astroturfing by Sam Altman to keep the ChatGPT hype going while he cashes out.
> ‘My niece is a lovely girl, really smart, great at school, and the other day she told me she wants to be a lawyer. And I thought, “Oh my God, my little niece wants to be a lawyer”, and I flat out told her. I said please do not destroy your life. Do not get into a lifetime of debt for a job that won’t exist in ten years. Or less.’
Bets that this won't happen in just 10 years?
DARPA Grand Challenge took 20 years, and it's still not on the interstates. Waymo is amazing, but it's still a work in progress.
I know it's coming, but solving problems that require 99.999% correctness is hard work. Mistakes multiply.
A toy can be ready tomorrow, but a precision legal tool needs to be better than humans. Not unlike driving 70 mph on the interstate highway with hands off the wheel.
Not sure it will replace them, but a tool that allows folks to have a better understanding of the legal system and how to navigate it will certainly impact the existing power systems (of which lawyers are a part).
Someone publishes this story every 3 months. One more gullible senior attorney getting on the hype train is not news. LLMs are very, very, very good at making words look pretty, which has always been a cherished talent that lawyers liked to think only they possessed. But even before LLMs, you wouldn’t pay a lawyer much if all you needed them to do was to write a brief with no investigation, discovery, or motion practice involved. Grok’s output looks like great lawyering because it’s the product of great lawyering - great lawyering which enabled this source to spoon-feed the facts and the law to Grok, which makes this more like a law school writing assignment than actual legal work.
Just like AI will kill all the software developers...
Obviously AI will change the legal industry. But a lawyer will still have an advantage because they know what questions to ask and can provide the AI with the relevant context.
It has indeed killed several careers at this point, but not because it was better than a human, but because a lazy human used it and didn't check their work.
I really doubt this for one reason. lawyers makes the laws. Already we have seen massive push-back in legal areas where some lawyers were punished for using AI.
Once it looks like their profession is threatened, you will see many laws against AI.
I thought decades ago people found a way to avoid lawyers is a specific instance, I kind of remember doing that was made against the law. Not sure if I am remembering right, but I could swear that happened.
Edit: Reading the comments, I think it was the bar exam. IIRC there was a time you could take it without a degree, that was changed to force people to go to to college and get a degree.
Its a funny take because this reddit thread seems to suggest the opposite. Pro se litigants (people representing themselves) are using LLMs to create more lawsuits resulting in more work for lawyers.
This article talks about martinis about as much as it talks about the careers of lawyers being threatened by AI. The article provides no real justification for its claims outside of anecdotal opinions. The only value of this article is that it results in a discussion in the comments section that provide the actual credence to the claims.
Very much doubt, what you’ll see is it killing off paralegal work.
In most jurisdictions legal advice is a regulated and restricted activity. Qualified lawyers today get themselves into trouble without AI advising on areas they have no right to practice in.
33 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 50.6 ms ] threadIf now you were to come forward with an AI lawyer, in practice it'll be almost as if you didn't use a lawyer at all, as if you were representing yourself, which will get you the worst possible deal, if any. Things shouldn't be this way at all, but the system is crooked, and so they are this way.
As such, I think some lawyers are going away, but not all. The ones who stand in court will have business.
As usual with "AI replacing humans", the key thing to consider here is accountability.
I want to get my legal advice from someone who is accountable for that advice, and is willing to stake their professional reputation on that advice being correct.
An LLM can never be accountable.
I don't want an LLM for a lawyer. I want a lawyer armed with LLMs, who's more effective than the previous generations of lawyers.
(I'd also like them to be cheaper because they take less time to solve my problems, but I would hope that means they can take on more clients and maintain a healthy income that way even as each client takes less time.)
The closing paragraph of that story:
> ‘My niece is a lovely girl, really smart, great at school, and the other day she told me she wants to be a lawyer. And I thought, “Oh my God, my little niece wants to be a lawyer”, and I flat out told her. I said please do not destroy your life. Do not get into a lifetime of debt for a job that won’t exist in ten years. Or less.’
Uh oh. Here we go again, with the "don't bother studying computer science, it's 2002, all the jobs will be outsourced to cheaper countries in the next few years!". So glad I didn't listen to that advice back then!
"Your honor, the death penalty for a traffic ticket?"
AI will never replace humans in this capacity. Lawyers may be scummy but most people would take a slimeball lawyer over a hallucinating, sycophantic "AI" pretending to be both a human and a lawyer. This reads more like astroturfing by Sam Altman to keep the ChatGPT hype going while he cashes out.
Bets that this won't happen in just 10 years?
DARPA Grand Challenge took 20 years, and it's still not on the interstates. Waymo is amazing, but it's still a work in progress.
I know it's coming, but solving problems that require 99.999% correctness is hard work. Mistakes multiply.
A toy can be ready tomorrow, but a precision legal tool needs to be better than humans. Not unlike driving 70 mph on the interstate highway with hands off the wheel.
That will the biggest criminal case processed without lawyers!
What worries me is the idea of them replacing JUDGES.
Obviously AI will change the legal industry. But a lawyer will still have an advantage because they know what questions to ask and can provide the AI with the relevant context.
Once it looks like their profession is threatened, you will see many laws against AI.
I thought decades ago people found a way to avoid lawyers is a specific instance, I kind of remember doing that was made against the law. Not sure if I am remembering right, but I could swear that happened.
Edit: Reading the comments, I think it was the bar exam. IIRC there was a time you could take it without a degree, that was changed to force people to go to to college and get a degree.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Lawyertalk/comments/1n9cwfv/pro_se_...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG3uea-Hvy4
In most jurisdictions legal advice is a regulated and restricted activity. Qualified lawyers today get themselves into trouble without AI advising on areas they have no right to practice in.