Are Robots Going to Take Our Legal Jobs?
Lawyers need to evolve to enjoy successful legal careers, as legal tech columnist Jeff Bennion explains.
It is inevitable that technology will change the legal profession because it is changing all professions, but do we need to worry about it taking our jobs? If by “taking our jobs” you mean that one day there will be a bronze protocol droid in a three-piece suit behind your desk drafting an opposition to a motion for summary judgment, then probably not. But, if you mean that certain menial parts of your jobs are going to be outsourced to technology, then you are probably right.
We’ve seen great advances in the last 10 years in how technology has made our businesses more efficient, and we are certainly going to be seeing a lot more in the next 10 years, but it is important to draw a distinction between what those technologies will do and what they won’t do. Let’s look at some advancements that we’ve seen recently:
- Digital Bates stamping
- Predictive coding
- Advanced searches in legal research tools
- Document assembly
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The list goes on. Last year, I spoke to a company that has software that reviews and analyzes the language of contracts that your company has and alerts you of certain red-flag events, expiring contracts, inconsistent clauses, circular references to other defined terms, etc. The practice of law is evolving in that we are getting access to more efficient tools. So, if your job involves nothing but doing things like replacing bracketed text in jury instructions with the parties’ actual names, or printing out labels with Bates numbers on them and sticking those labels on the bottom right of each page of a document production, then you might be in trouble in the near future.
On the other hand, if your job is something that is made easier by shortcuts, but not replaced with shortcuts, then you are not in danger of losing your job to a robot. At least not in the next 10 years.
What Can Robots Do?
The book Incognito by neuroscientist David Eagleman (affiliate link) looks at how the brain works, how humans analyze things, and what technology can replace from our brains and what it cannot.
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Eagleman describes the steps of how a robot would approach the problem of stacking blocks. First, it would run a subroutine of identifying what is a block and what is not a block. Then, it would execute a subroutine to pick up the block. Then, it would execute a subroutine to stack the block on top of another block. Predictive coding can look at an index of millions of records and look at word relationships and patterns of keywords and synonyms to identify documents it “thinks” are relevant. But, according to Eagleman, tackling problems as subroutines that are performed in order, which is the only way artificial intelligence can operate right now, is not how the human brain solves problems. So, while Relativity might be able to find the top 100 hottest documents, it cannot figure out which of those would be best to use as deposition exhibits. It could look at a PowerPoint slide deck and tell you if the word density is too high, but it can’t tell you if it would be boring to listen to.
Long story short – receptionists might be replaced by an auto attendant from a cloud telephone service, but lawyers are still far off from being replaced (at least certain lawyers).
What Does This Mean For Us?
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So, what if all you do is menial labor and you are worried that you are going to get replaced by a robot? Don’t worry. Your legal career is not on borrowed time. You do what Blockbuster and Kodak didn’t do – you evolve. Move yourself outside of the realm of menial tasks and things that can be solved by subroutines. That’s option one.
Option two is to learn to be the one who controls the technology. Last week, I discussed how one of the best things a young lawyer can do is learn legal technology. Even more so if you feel that technology is going to replace your job. The technology does not buy itself and install itself. It does not run a cost/benefit analysis of using different systems. Relativity does not walk into a room and settle cases. It’s the administrators and document review teams that run the searches and use the shortcuts to find those documents. So, learn how to control and master the tools that create the shortcuts. As the person who controls the shortcuts, you’ll be in even higher demand than a professional Bates label applier.
Jeff Bennion is Of Counsel at Estey & Bomberger LLP, a plaintiffs’ law firm specializing in mass torts and catastrophic injuries. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of San Diego’s plaintiffs’ trial lawyers association, Consumer Attorneys of San Diego. He is also the Education Chair and Executive Committee member of the State Bar of California’s Law Practice Management and Technologysection. He is a member of the Advisory Council and instructor at UCSD’s Litigation Technology Management program. His opinions are his own. Follow him on Twitter here or on Facebook here, or contact him by email at [email protected].
