He should absorb legal duties, not replace lawyers – artificial lawyer

If the ultimate goal of that legal one is simply to remain ‘in support’ and never really change the status quo, then all this effort will have been in vain. Rather, we MUST aim to replace. Not of lawyers as a whole – which is impossible – but by so many ‘legal tasks’ that technology allows.

The problem is that many of the legal conversation is focused on holding lawyers in exactly the same situation, with them doing the same tasks in the same way, but with a quick strip of it, add faster, added, a small friend of it, a minion, a gopher, to make their offers. This approach will never change the game. (And maybe that is how many people would like it to remain…?)

This obstacle is formed by something so widespread that we do not always see it: the belief that a lawyer must really be ‘the whole means of production’ and that any technology in their evaluation is simply there to help as an underline. But the goal of that legal one is not to make faster lawyers by bringing them to a digital palanquin, no more than Henry Ford wanted faster horses.

However – and this is an important warning – replacement of tasks, or near replacement, is not, despite appearances, with the replacement of lawyers. There is a major change and this center on the nature of discrete tasks compared to the entire range of activities, as it now and potentially in the future, that a lawyer can perform depending on their circumstances.

Horses, typists, lawyers

We did not invent the internal combustion engine so that the horses could go faster.

We have not invented word processing software to make the typists more versatile.

They were invented to perform a task better than before.

The reason why the horse and the carriage went out of fashion was because its existence was concentrated only in a main task: To travel the roads, the movement of people and goods from A to B. The car made that task better. But if let’s say the horses were capable of many, much more, it was essential to our lives, they would still be with us in large numbers in our cities, simply not attracting things from A in B. But they are not, so they were ‘set in office’.

As for the typists …. ‘typist’ and ‘task of oppression’ were so closely related that every break was fatal. That is, work was really just a task, and this is always a dangerous position to maintain, given that society evolves and technology always progresses.

Yes, what about lawyers? Well, this site – and I’m sure most people – will argue that lawyers are not just ‘a task’, e.g. Only the renewal, or the production of client letters on board, or by understanding what a legal invoice should be, or the arrangement of documents in a chronological order and so on, even if as Junior Associates can spend considerable time to do the same.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, tasks, under the term umbrella ‘lawyer’. There is also exactly a special task known as ‘doing law’, and there is no new technology that simply ‘does all the tasks of a lawyer’ – which should be emphasized, are always evolving.

On the contrary, ‘a lawyer’ is many, many things. Each lawyer is a composition of multiple tasksWith those tasks that change as they develop in their careers, or change the organization and role.

So are we trying to get rid of lawyers with legal technology? No. Not at all. In fact, ‘to get rid of lawyers’ is as impossible as ‘getting rid of politicians’ – both are internal aspects of a civilized society. In short, replacing lawyers is a fool’s mistake, while replacing as much a discrete legal task as possible … Now it makes sense.

In which case, can millions of people possess the professional symbol of ‘lawyer’ to breathe a sigh?

Well, not exactly. No.

We must stop removing the fact that legal technology is there to remove tasks (or as many of them as possible) from this composite body, this amalgam of activities. This will result in the work of the ‘lawyer’ evolution.

And to paraphrase an old saying: ‘Time time to remove (ineffective).’

This means overcoming one of the biggest legal sector hanging: his fully understandable internal view of anything that changes its place in the world.

Don’t ask what legal technology can do for you

To paraphrase again, this time with a famous song: ‘You probably think this (legal technology) has to do with you? Aren’t you? Or not you? ‘

But it really is not.

Here are another examples from beyond the legal world.

A company develops a much better MRI scanner – it’s really better than before. It is faster, it goes deeper into the tissue, is more accurate, and in fact, it is even less costly than other ones. A doctor whose practice depends on the analysis of deep tissue really wants to have one.

Why do they love this ‘Med-Tech’ tool?

1. Because it will help save lives – this will help their patients, as it can do more for them.
2. Because it will make their life a little easier.
3. Because it will make the hospital more profits because it is cheaper than the old MRI scanner, but they should not tell anyone who can now charge the same as before, but it actually costs them less.

I’m thinking you have chosen number 1.

Now a technology company develops a solar panel that is 30% more efficient than any other in the market, providing more electricity at a much lower cost than before. National Energy Company engineers want to buy this:

1. Because they hope to get wage increases by adapting this more efficient ‘means’?
2. Because they will now have to work less by fitting these panels, as they are more energy efficient? (In fact, they will not, they will do the same amount of work as before, it will simply be more influential.)
3. Because they realize that the best solar panels are not about them and their immediate needs as engineers, but it is about creating a more environmental energy system for everyone and this new technology will help.

Hoping you have selected 3.

In both examples there are many in common. Doctors and engineers are professionals. Their professional goals, that is, to help people money through medicine, the last through engineering, are both facing from the outside.

The technique they sometimes use can make their lives easier, but the ultimate goal for the most part is for their customers. Doctors can save more lives with better MRI and other technology. Engineers can provide better energy security, build better buildings, etc., with better technology.

How is this related to legal duties? Well, lawyers have become a measure of tasks, so when someone provides technology that removes work from the task that can sometimes become protective.

There is a tendency to see technology as ‘replace them’, rather than taking some, or hopefully all one day, with an inefficient task, routine, or perhaps – as with the MRI example – making that task even better than you can. Eg there is no way a doctor can do what an MRI scanner can do. Truly really additional for possible results. Whereas, few lawyers feel in such a way about technology; It is just a gofer doing what they could do already.

Now, would a doctor oppose a system by replacing their diagnostic skills? Maybe, but then most doctors are not paid according to the billed time, so maybe a system of diagnosing a one – which is just a task from a lot that makes up a doctor – would allow them to do more. Maybe also reduce the risk. Lower the stress too…!

The engineer is pleased to have new solar panels, but would they like a system to help design installation diagrams for those panels? Maybe they would feel a threat there. But maybe they will also realize that this technology allowed them to get more work? Maybe this – how with doctors – actually reduced stress and danger?

But with lawyers embedded in a world of zero amount calculations for time = money and who does what in any work project often or see the legal as it supports them as long as it does not take their way, or if it seems it can really do what it can do (especially if billed), then it is potentially a threat. Imagine if the doctors were attractive to the use of MRI scanners because they believed they were a threat?

To complete

We need to do some things with the legal one to get the most out of it, and to think otherwise, having a new mentality is essential:

1. Stop being shy about ‘replacement’. But not for the purpose of replacing lawyers, which is technically impossible, and rather focuses on replacing as many tasks as possible so that human lawyers do not have time to waste time about those things.
2. To see legal technology like raising the game, increasing the skills of lawyers, not just acting as a ‘small helper’, where the center of the lawyer’s attention is focused on themselves. (Ie ‘you probably think this song has to do with you…?’)
3. To think more widely about what lawyers are there and their place in a complex, developing and economy society – and then how legal technology benefits from society and the economy. IE civilization needs lawyers – and will always – but there is no need for them to bill $ 10,000 to do a task that a system can do in 5 seconds with very high accuracy. This is just an unwanted tax on the functioning of the economy.
4. To help lawyers leave things inefficient. Of course, to leave, even a little, means that the tools must be accurate, useful and reliable. But it has become a big progress and change of mindset will be as important as improving technology.

Richard Tromans, Founder, Artificial Lawyer, May 2025

PS I am traveling and again ‘in office’ on Thursday.