AI might not be coming for lawyers' jobs anytime soon Generative AI might have aced the bar exam, but an LLM still can't think like a lawyer. When the generative AI boom took off in 2022, Rudi Miller and her law school classmates were suddenly gripped with anxiety. "Before graduating, there was discussion about what the job market would look like for us if AI became adopted," she recalls. So when it came time to choose a speciality, Miller--now a junior associate at the law firm Orrick--decided to become a litigator, the kind of lawyer who represents clients in court. She hoped the courtroom would be the last human stage. "Judges haven't allowed ChatGPT-enabled robots to argue in court yet," she says.

Andrew Perlman, Dean of the Suffolk University School of Law in Boston, is no stranger to examining innovative legal technology, but his recent experiment with generative artificial intelligence (AI)--Open AI's ChatGPT, to be precise--led him to think the technology may create bigger changes to the way law is practiced than the Internet itself. Perlman published one of the legal community's first evaluations of ChatGPT's capabilities in creating convincing arguments and answers to typical questions, in "The Implications of ChatGPT For Legal Services and Society" (https://bit.ly/3NuhFxG),

A world-first report from Dr Allan McCay in the Law School scrutinises advances in neurotechnology and what they might mean for the law and the legal profession. Dr Allan McCay, a criminal law scholar at the University of Sydney Law School, has published the first substantial overview of neurotechnology and its implications for the law and the legal profession. Neurotechnologies are technologies that interact directly with the brain, or more broadly the nervous system, by monitoring and recording neural activity, and/or acting to influence it. Sometimes neurotechnology is implanted in the brain but it may also be in the form of a headset, wristband or helmet. The technology is already being used in health settings for the treatment of patients with Parkinson's and epilepsy and could be used in the future to monitor and treat schizophrenia, depression and anxiety.

Bill Henderson once advised me not to use the term "industrialization" to describe changes in the legal profession to attorneys. It offends us, and we disengage. But I titled this field note "industrial evolution" because we must embrace industrialization as a necessary and valuable part of our transformation that will elevate the value of our profession in a digital age. This post is part of a series that reflects my legal industry learning journey, building upon my career journey (080), professional evolution (143), focus on knowledge work (159), and future practice design theory (210). This installment examines the changes happening now that require us to evolve to serve a civilization experiencing exponential change powered by the fourth industrial revolution, and how we might get there faster, together. See Erik Brynjolfsson & Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (2016) (cognitive automation will produce creative destruction). This post was drafted proximal to the College of Law Practice Management's 2021 Futures Conference, which offered expert commentary on the information work industrialization megatrend and strongly influenced the thesis presented here: that we are experiencing accelerating change as a secular trend. As discussed below, my tentative solution is, in part, to invert the law's traditional pyramid structure. None of this is likely to make much sense, however, without first describing the set of challenges before us.

Traditional law has paved a trail of stagnation, but now that AI and ALSPs have broken into the industry, suddenly nothing is certain. My research on the NewLaw industry unraveled the two biggest sectors of Alternative Legal Service Providers; LPOs and Alternative Staffing Providers. Together, the two sectors cater perfectly to the legal market; one arm focuses on completing menial legal labour with cost effective outsourcing, and the other arm focuses on insourcing experienced legal talent for projects that necessitate expertise in a certain area. Soon though, these two arms will become one fully functioning limb, homogenizing the industry to achieve versatility and supersede the benefits of turning to a traditional law firm. It seems masochistic to abide by TradLaw standards when law firms and in-house counsels finally have the option to automate tasks or outsource/insource various legal work. We are seeing the tide of the legal-sphere turn, and I've made certain predictions as to who will stay afloat, and who won't.

Moreover, the applications that support law firms now offer new insights into productivity -- something that is useful for attorneys and clients alike. Because of popular media, there are lots of perceptions as to the nature of artificial intelligence. Many of these perceptions have to do with programs that gain sentience and set forth their nefarious agendas. The reality of artificial intelligence is much less colorful, but much more useful. In its simplest form, AI is a technology that can mimic human characteristics in order to perform tasks previously only possible for humans.

Faced with spending cuts by clients, stiffer competition from upstart legal services providers, and the rise of automation and artificial intelligence (AI), law firms' traditional model of the billable hour may have had its time in the sun. "Law firms are looking for different ways to charge for their services, especially in the corporate market where clients are just not accepting the old way of billing," says Dani McCormick, director of solutions at Lexis Nexis. The billable hour has long been the bedrock of how the legal profession works out how much to charge clients for their services. Fee earners log the time they spend on client work each day, usually in six-minute increments, and this helps them to provide clients with accurate bills and keep track of annual billing targets. While this model was effective in the past, critics say its rigid structure is incompatible with the current market, where clients are more price conscious, and see more value in project-based pay and success fees.

The increasing prevalence and accessibility of artificial intelligence (AI) has allowed more companies to use AI to analyze data and engage with customers. While AI-powered software is already being utilized to carry out simple legal tasks, recent technological advancements are enabling AI to take responsibility for a significant amount of legal work. According to a 2017 report, 39 percent of Thomas Reuters in-house counsel agree that AI will become commonplace within the legal profession over the next decade. So, what exactly is AI, and how can it be effectively utilized in litigation? The term "artificial intelligence" is used to describe how computers perform tasks that are typically regarded as requiring human intelligence.

In business today, AI is a shorthand used to refer to technological processes that automate services. Attorneys will generally encounter two kinds of AI: reactive and limited memory. Reactive AIs respond to human input using predetermined algorithms, like playing chess against a computer. Limited memory AIs rely on both preprogrammed inputs and the AI's own observations over time, like self-driving cars, natural language processors (e.g., Siri), and machine learning. The most popular among them, and the most disruptive for the legal industry, is machine learning.

But using technology to optimise previously complex, time consuming processes is not a new concept. However, employing artificial intelligence (AI) for the analysis and management of traditionally unstructured information, has the potential to not just unlock more value for users but also provide insights that have not been possible before. That is why artificial intelligence for the lawyer or for legal workers is beginning to gain traction. Indeed, the future of legal profession may well be AI and the impact of technology on legal profession will be significant indeed. Artificial intelligence for the lawyer will help change contract management, with the potential to deliver such a significant transformation to this area because contracts are the foundation of a company's commercial relationships.