Extract from Joe Calve’s article “Judgment as a Service: The Business Model That Replaces the Billable Hour”
When AI does the work, law firms will sell what was always most valuable—and finally name it.
Legal analyst Jordan Furlong, saw it coming. In a recent piece on AI-centric law firms, Furlong discusses “displacement, not replacement.” Lawyers won’t disappear, but they’re “going to switch seats,” he writes. AI will become “the productivity engine of legal work,” while lawyers focus on “building human relationships, expressing human empathy, performing human advocacy, and exercising human judgment.”
He’s right. But he stops short of answering the key question: What exactly are clients buying in this new world? If AI drafts the documents, conducts the research, and flags the issues— and if a new breed of legal professional verifies the output – then what’s the actual product senior lawyers are selling?
I think I know. It’s been hiding in plain sight for years.
