Atty. Ferdi Zemog’s (Atty. FZ) eyes were lit as he gushed through the creamy white sauce of the carbonara.
AI is the topic for lunch, and as we know from recent human experience, it does not need any dip of hot sauce to spice up any convo – more so with lawyering, a long-gatekeeped and heavily-fortified profession.
The disruption brought by AI is quickly eroding the profession’s high walls, creating a moat for those who lined up early like in IPhone launchings. For the slow, a quicksand situation wherein you do not know you are sinking until it is too late.
After 20-years in his general land practice, Atty FZ, like a lovestruck farmer, has not seen any tool as potent as AI in terms of compounding his work. While farmers are happy when they can plant for an extra season or gather extra tons of fruit or veggie because of an innovation, Atty FZ, the lawyer that he is, can do more meetings and perform more engagements because of AI–all things, including traffic being equal and normal.
“With AI, a pro forma legal theory can instantly be generated, and sporting the latest jurisprudence at that. It is very much acceptable work, leaving me nothing to do but the occasional trimming along the edges”, says the proud counselor on the feats of his new toy.
The realization? 1. certain jobs are instantly deemed redundant. Layers of paralegal activities will be cut at an increasing rate in the next few years, 2. the competitive aspects of the said jobs are deemed to be equal between competing parties at certain degrees versus in the past. Meaning that AI tends to balance “theories” in terms of the research part, and 3. the competitive edge, again all things being equal in terms of AI availability and technology, shifts towards the soft, poignant, eloquent and yet powerful persuasive skills of the barrister, and too, his quick wits in the employ of procedure, evidence, and plus those tricks NOT taught in school.
In other words, the future of the profession, which always and STILL is traditionally based on TRUST between the client and the firm, will be grounded on communications training and relationship management.
If law students do not focus and hone their communication skills at the onset, there will be little, in terms of differentiation, for the client to cling onto before they lose interest and Alt-tab their way to look for a second opinion.
On the bigger picture, if law firms do not invest in AI, it will be tantamount to negligence or even willful ignorance. Surely, one cannot redress a wrong nor enforce a right with a hand tied behind his back eh?
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