The Global Legal Post writes…
Paper on profession’s future paints one dystopian scenario of ravages of AI with elite cadre of lawyers on performance-enhancing drugs
The Law Society of England and Wales has envisaged the future – and found it to be potentially rather bleak, with City lawyers being encouraged to take ‘performance-enhancing medication’ to remain competitive.
Predicting a future in which consumer services, like property and private client law, are ‘delivered by large retail legal service providers’, it says commercial law firms will see ‘large swathes of routine legal advice’ outsourced, leaving an elite cadre of City and in-house lawyers to advise in person.
‘The cost pressures on the legal sector to adopt AI and streamline legal functions will lead to more work types being commoditised, automated and self-service in the near term,’ the report finds. ‘Only the high value, complex or newest areas of law will need human input. Humans may also be needed in relationship management with larger clients,’ it warns.
Those lawyers that remain in high-end jobs, the report says, will be ‘generally immune to a radical reduction in staff’.
The Future Worlds 2050 project was set up to ‘enable raw, frank and honest discussions around what clients will need in the future’. Its first report, Images of the Future Worlds Facing the Legal Profession 2020-2030, pulls few punches.
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