Usually, the first year after we’ve passed the bar, professional dues are waived, giving time for new admittees to get on their feet, at least a little bit. So, that is the baby lawyer dues stage.
Then comes the “toddler stage.” We’ve all been through that: still unsteady on our feet and into everything. That’s the next step of bar dues, usually from years two through five, we pay our dues, but at a lesser amount.
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After those stages have passed, we graduate to paying dues in full. Usually, there’s no discount for state bar membership. And usually the dues increase in price depending on your years as a lawyer.
There’s a big difference between paying our dues literally and paying them figuratively.
Paying our dues, not just to whatever voluntary or mandatory associations that require our membership, but paying what dues are necessary to move our careers forward, to advance in the profession. If AI takes all the scut work, then how will lawyers pay their dues? What will the young ones do? How do they learn? How will they become good competent lawyers ? Let’s stipulate that by passing the bar doesn’t make us per se competent.
No one succeeds in this profession, or any other for that matter, without help. No one does it alone. Contrary to popular opinion (or unpopular for that matter) there is no such thing as “overnight success.” Success takes years and years. I don’t think there is anything or anyone that creates overnight success. Although peeps may argue that, the truth is otherwise. “Overnight success” is a term of art, if that. As Andy Warhol noted, and I am paraphrasing here, in the future, everyone will have 15 minutes of success.
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It’s an uphill slog from being a junior associate to a senior associate to a nonequity partner to a partner, if that’s your goal. And even if that’s it, there’s no guarantee that you won’t wind up as a senior counsel or a staff attorney or shown the door.
Nobody in our profession makes it without help. It can be a mentor, a colleague, people you meet at CLE seminars or on Zoom, people you meet while volunteering with bar associations or networking (a term I still loathe). Everyone needs help, a hand up, an offer of assistance. We are often so reluctant to ask for help, seeing that ask as a character flaw. It is anything but. We need to learn how to ask for help.
Will AI do the tasks or do the job? That’s an important distinction. What role will lawyers play? The necessary menial work that we all cut out teeth on can now be done by AI, more efficiently and usually at lower cost. Partners historically have reduced billings spent on a matter because the associate, who was learning, spent way much time. That’s how we learned, although sometimes at the firm’s expense.
Are we asking AI to do too much? What about that pesky little thing called “authority?” While AI may have the authority to write the contract or review, does AI have the authority to make decisions about implementation? Can AI negotiate changes to the document without human approval? At what level is authority needed? Who has the required authority? Who tells AI what it can and cannot do? How are “whoops” avoided?
A recent survey shows that, in addition to concern about AI hallucinations, there is distrust about AI being used in administrative tasks, the bane of every lawyer, no matter what size firm. Of those surveyed, 28% named lack of trust in AI as a barrier to reducing administrative work, with another 25% citing data privacy.
So, if there’s a billing dispute with a client, who is the first firm contact? The machine or the billing partner or the attorney who worked on the matter? While firms are spending big bucks on AI, many of them have not harvested much ROI; in other words, clients are in no hurry to pay those bills.
Uh-oh. As we all have learned, billing is one task. Collecting is another, and so far, AI is not collecting those receivables.
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at [email protected].