• Jordan Furlong on Substack, forecasting a divide in legal work into two spheres as a result of massive improvements and uptake of Generative AI:

• Sphere 1: Legal Production. This is all the specialized intellectual work involved in generating legal solutions: researching, issue-spotting, summarizing, synthesizing, drafting, revising, reasoning, and analyzing. This is the bulk of lawyers’ traditional activity and billed hours. In future, it will be done faster, cheaper, and increasingly better with machines — either by clients themselves, or embedded in systems and platforms that reduce the need for lawyer involvement.

• Sphere 2: Legal Judgment. This is higher-value work defined by the unpredictability, complexity, and impact of its challenges. In this sphere, you’ll find hard-decision advice, guidance under uncertainty, systematic dispute avoidance, strategic counsel, critical advocacy, risk prioritization, and high-stakes accountability. It’s likely (but far from certain) that this work will remain outside the reach of Gen AI. This is the sphere that holds the potential to support a future legal profession.

He goes on:

These spheres are meant to be analytical categories, rather than hermetically sealed silos. In the real world, client needs naturally will be met with a blend of both types, e.g., legal judgment reinforced by machine-driven production. The point is that in future, lawyers will rarely be undertaking Sphere 1 activities themselves.

My observation:

Structurally, U.S. law schools are tuned to train new lawyers largely in Sphere 1 activity.

Are any law schools actively planning for a future in which lawyers operate mostly in Sphere 2?