Allegedly*

For now. They're about to get hit by the AI wave as bad as us software devs. Who knows what's on the other side of this.

Sorry that I have to be the one to tell you this, but lawyers are fine. Sure, AI will have an impact, but nothing like the once hyped idea that it would replace lawyers. It has actually been amusing to watch the hype cycle play out around AI when it comes to lawyers.

My parents had a weird green card and paperwork issue that was becoming a big problem. Everyone in their social circle recommended an immigration type lawyer. Everyone.

My dad was confident he could figure it out based on his perplexity Pro account. He attacked the problem from several angles and used it for help with what to do, how to do it, what to ask for when visiting offices, how to press them to move forward, and tons of other things.

Got the problem resolved.

So it definitely can reduce hiring lawyers even.

Hell, the tech savvy senior lawyers are already using LLMs to do the work that army's of juniors and other assistants did for them. Just like what is happening with software engineers. Anybody who thinks this isn't going to have some kind of impact is mental.

Definitely. But I think the nature of that impact is not entirely clear. In the legal context, LLMs are also hallucinating extensively, citing made up case law, etc. It’s not yet clear whether they are potentially solving one problem, while introducing many others.

Lawyership in the sense of the profession may survive and adapt. Individual lawyers, not so much. I strongly doubt the new equilibrium (if we ever reach one) will need so many lawyers.

Same logic for software developers.