WILL AI REPLACE LAWYERS?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used (note, we choose to use, not be used by) as our faithful servant for as long as we develop and maintain it as our intellectual assistant. As such, and because of its capabilities, we can achieve a revolutionary level of learning, innovation, and technological achievement. This is like the Industrial Revolution, except it is much more.

AI will replace some of us, for example, in the legal services sector. In fact, it will take over certain labor-intensive document handling and research tasks entirely. In addition, AI will actually replace the need for more intellectually challenged legal minds. Cheerfully, we predict it will replace the personal injury ambulance chasing contingent fee-generating dregs of the legal profession entirely. But rest assured, many lawyers will still be needed.

• Initial Evaluation.  Anyone will be able to represent themselves by jumping into AI for answers. However, the legal services providers will point out that the lawyer's experience with and understanding of the client's problem is a valuable commodity in evaluating and making a judgment on deciding how to proceed. Experience will still count since AI needs to be fed the facts relevant to assist in the solution. The lawyer meets the client, probes the client's needs, gathers the facts, judges how to proceed, and properly instructs AI on how it can be of assistance. What does the client want? Is it possible, proper, and feasible? What are the chances of success in what forum or venue? Who is this client anyway, and will the judicial system look kindly upon them?
• Science and Art. There is an art to the development and delivery of legal services. AI will not compose and deliver oral arguments in court or make impassioned closing arguments to jurors. AI will not read the faces of witnesses, jurors, judges, and clients to test veracity, let alone check out the body language. As with any art, creativity separates the men from the boys. So, too, lawyers are capable of creativity in how the case is handled substantively and procedurally. The experienced lawyer in a particular specialty may know better what strategy will best serve the specific client.
• Garbage in Garbage Out. The old adage applies with extra force to AI. AI needs a seasoned lawyer to provide the instructions to put AI in the right direction to assist as the lawyer describes the need. It is like asking the right questions. Anyone can give AI orders. Asking the right questions requires expertise and creativity. Then, the lawyer is needed to scrutinize the result from AI. Is it responsive, relevant, correct, and current? Is more inquiry needed? Must it be rearticulated to be helpful? AI will most likely be using terminology readily familiar to the lawyer, who, based on her experience, can interpret and explain to the client.
• Empathy. A lawyer's stock in trade is her empathy for the client and his plight. The lawyer's reading of the client influences the nature, substance, and timing of services rendered. In a word, AI lacks the personal touch and the ability to adjust services to the daily intersession with the client. There is and always will be a human touch that the lawyer provides. The lawyer brings life experiences that instruct how to provide the services needed. The human ability to appropriately empathize does not even address the more extensive consideration of the trustworthiness, candor, and character traits the lawyer brings to the client in a time of great or even lesser need.

These are but a few salient reasons AI will not replace lawyers. Yes, the legal profession will make adjustments. Seasoned lawyers will be in more demand, newly minted ones less. Money will change hands. More will move from the legal services sector to the AI owners and developers (another subject). There will be adjustment pains. But we will not stop the AI train, and circumspect society will improve its advancement by a full-throated endorsement and adoption of artificial intelligence.