Jonathan Wolf (Rink Noonan, St. Cloud, MN), Do AI Large Language Models Like ChatGPT Make Law School Less Worth It As An Investment?:
Younger attorneys, despite their tech savvy, could very well find themselves completely displaced.
Artificial intelligence has been pilloried as a career killer across several industries, especially since the latest version of ChatGPT came out. The legal profession has not been immune, and with ChatGPT now able to pass the bar exam, a certain amount of anxiety is warranted. …
What AI will do, in particular large language models like ChatGPT, is replace some of us, and some of what we do.
Artificial intelligence is already being used in transactional drafting. Although a flesh-and-blood lawyer still has to look over any contract or other legal document drafted by a large language model, I’m willing to bet that the first drafts spit out from some commercial AI services are already better than what you’d get by having a very green associate take a run at it.
Forms of AI have also already been in use for years in document review, once the purgatory of low-level litigation associates. As soon as artificial intelligence can pump out a reasonably good first draft of written discovery requests, well, at that stage maybe even a codger like me could develop feelings for it.
The relationship between legal professionals and increasingly powerful AI technology is going to vary wildly though based on where you are in the legal hierarchy. …
[Y]ounger attorneys, despite their tech savvy, could very well find themselves completely displaced. The types of tasks which cannot be easily outsourced to AI — client management, (cogent) oral arguments in court, business development — also happen to be the more desirable types of legal work. These tasks are already hoarded by the lawyers powerful enough in their careers to hoard them. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
A modest increase in attorney positions is expected by 2030, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet the majority of these expected positions are purportedly going to be created not through organic growth in the legal industry, but through massive waves of attrition, attributable to retirements among older lawyers as well as disillusioned attorneys leaving the profession for a variety of reasons unrelated to longevity. …
Powerful AI won’t demolish the legal profession. What large language models and other forms of AI will do is further hollow out some corners of the legal profession.
My advice, if you are considering law school as legal AI is increasingly adopted: Don’t do it on a whim, do it without accumulating a massive debt if at all possible, and recognize that it is going to be incredibly hard work with no guarantee of success. In other words, go to law school if you really want to practice law — otherwise, don’t.
