Extract from Lisa Lang’s article, “AI Won’t Make Lawyering Faster. It Will Make It Different.”
Speed alone is, quite frankly, dangerous.
Everyone expects AI to make legal work faster. Clients expect it most of all, and some now expect lower bills to follow. Joe Patrice of Above the Law observes that clients want faster and cheaper results regardless of what AI realistically delivers. We need to manage those expectations now, before they harden into budgets.
In my experience, AI does not always get the work done faster. It gets the work done differently. The early evidence points the same way. In “Alex Su Named President Of Latitude As Flex Legal Staffing Market Booms,” Patrice notes that so far AI seems to be increasing the time lawyers work. Part of that may be lawyers frantically editing to avoid the next AI hallucination headline. Part may be that AI uncovers new counterarguments and research rabbit holes that someone has to chase down. Either way, the time does not disappear. It moves.
Su describes where it moves in Latitude’s announcement of his promotion. “As routine work gets automated, the work that’s left for legal teams to handle is more complex, higher stakes, and less predictable, and clients need to be able to bring in support quickly when it hits.” Patrice adds that a competent first draft may no longer be scarce, while the skill to edit it into something presentable will be. Latitude’s growth suggests legal teams are covering bursts of complex work with flexible talent because no one is sure what staffing should look like in an AI world.
