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The Future of Law Firms in the Face of Artificial Intelligence

It’s hard to know the extent to which artificial intelligence will impact law firms in the next five years. But studying the history of technological change can shed light on how to approach and answer this question.  

The history of computer chess is instructive. For many years theorists argued that it was not possible for a computer to even play chess. When chess computers were invented, many believed that computers would never be able to beat strong players. And when strong players lost to computers, humans held out hope that the strongest human players would demonstrate the ultimate superiority of human intelligence and creativity.  

 And in 1996 everything changed. World champion Gary Kasparov, often ranked as one of the best chess players to have ever lived, lost a series of games against IBM’s Deep Blue. It was undeniable that raw computing power triumphed over human skill. And now it is not even debatable that the absolute best humans cannot come close to beating the best computer programs 

 A similar dynamic is taking place for law firms and AI. Many lawyers have long thought that writing a complex brief is a singularly human ability. In a few short years, large language models have developed such that they can quickly produce letters and other writings. A recent survey conducted by Clio indicates that lawyers are already starting to use AI in their offices. Specifically, “19% of lawyers say they use AI for marketing, 14% for research, 13% for document drafting, and 9% for litigation discovery”, but this barely covers some of the possibilities.  

 In this environment, it would be foolish to assume that AI cannot or will not soon outdo even the most skilled of human writers. Humans resist this conclusion but that is surely the more astute prediction.  

 Of course, this does not mean that lawyers will disappear entirely. Professional chess players still exist even though they are not as good as computers. Most importantly, computers have improved human chess playing, and technology has allowed many more humans to play at an elite level. Thus, the ability to use computers has become instrumental in helping chess players get better.   

 The same is likely to be true of lawyers. Those who learn to use AI will get better at the expense of those who do not. And those who assume that human intelligence and creativity cannot be exceeded are likely to be on a fool’s errand.