Authored By: Rania Khan
SOAS University of London
Introduction:
In recent years, the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has challenged long-held notions about which tasks require unique human skills. Artificial intelligence is being used in numerous industries to streamline procedures, reduce costs, and boost productivity. Artificial intelligence (AI) has been incorporated into the legal profession, which has traditionally relied on human advocacy, interpretation, and reasoning. This is one of the most surprising developments. AI is increasingly performing tasks that were formerly limited to qualified solicitors, such as contract analysis, legal research and even initial legal advice.[1] The question of whether artificial intelligence will someday replace lawyers is one of the significant discussions this shift has spurred about the future of the legal sector. Or will it evolve into a useful tool that enhances legal services and transforms the function of solicitors?
The Rise of AI in Legal Services:
AI and legal services have evolved beyond theory. There are currently many AI-powered solutions being used by law firms, corporate legal departments, and legal start-ups. Natural language processing and machine learning are used by these technologies to do complex tasks including predictive analytics, contract evaluation, document automation, and legal research. Systems like Harvey AI[2], Luminance[3] and Kira[4] can analyse thousands of legal documents in minutes, producing risk assessments, identifying trends, and detecting anomalies with a speed and precision that human lawyers alone could not equal. Customers can also receive AI-driven legal support straight from platforms like DoNotPay for issues like parking disputes and minor claims.[5]
AI’s main appeal in the legal services industry is its capacity to automate repetitive, high-volume work, which helps law firms cut expenses and increase productivity. Clients are expecting more transparency, quicker turnaround times, and less rates in a fiercely competitive legal market. AI enables businesses to satisfy these requirements without sacrificing quality. By providing highly relevant results with contextual analysis, tools like Westlaw Edge and Lexis+ AI improve legal research and drastically cut down on the amount of time attorneys spend looking for precedents. Artificial intelligence (AI) platforms can automatically analyse and create contracts in the field of contract law, spotting common clauses, odd wording, and other hazards. AI helps with due diligence during mergers and acquisitions by looking for warning signs in vast amounts of company documentation. These developments are already changing how legal work is delivered.
Despite these developments, it is a misinterpretation of the nature of legal profession to claim that AI will completely replace solicitors. AI is still constrained in domains that call for ethical reasoning, emotional intelligence and critical thinking, even though it can effectively manage mundane legal work.[6] For instance, litigation strategy entails more than just finding pertinent precedents; it also entails interpreting those precedents within a particular factual context, predicting the moves of the other parties, and using persuasive advocacy to persuade jurors or judges. Emotional nuance, cultural sensitivity, and the capacity to interpret interpersonal dynamics are also essential for successful negotiation in business or family conflicts. AI cannot duplicate these powers.
Relationships with clients are yet another crucial component of legal profession that AI cannot handle. Clients need legal advice for strategy, assistance, and confidence in addition to answers. Attorneys offer counsel throughout some of the most trying times in a person’s life, such as a difficult business transaction, a family conflict, or a criminal prosecution. A key component of this position is building trust, using discretion, and providing customised counsel. These jobs require human empathy and judgement, which an algorithm cannot learn. In addition, lawyers are frequently asked to settle disputes involving conflicting legal concepts or moral ambiguity. Rigidly following the regulations is not enough in certain situations. Artificial intelligence, at least in its current state, is not prepared to interpret the law in the same way that human lawyers do, taking into account ethical issues, societal values, and larger justice problems.
Risks and Ethical Concerns in Legal AI:
The application of AI in legal practice is also fraught with serious ethical and legal issues. The possibility of algorithmic bias is among the most urgent issues. AI programs that have been educated on past legal data may inherit and maintain current injustices, such as discrimination based on gender or race. For instance, it was discovered that the COMPAS system, which is utilised in criminal justice decision-making in the United States, exhibits racial prejudice in its risk evaluations.[7] Similar systems could compromise the equity of court decisions if they are implemented without protections. The occurrence of “hallucinated” outputs in large language models, when AI produces text that sounds convincing but is factually or legally incorrect, is another cause for concern.[8] Such mistakes could mislead clients, harm one’s reputation, and even lead to malpractice in legal settings.
Data privacy and confidentiality are also in jeopardy. Cloud-based platforms are used by many AI tools to analyse data, which raises questions regarding the security and protection of private legal data. Lawyers must exercise caution when it comes to how AI systems handle client data in places with stringent data protection rules, such as the UK under the GDPR[9] or Pakistan under its proposed Personal Data Protection Bill.[10] These worries are made worse by the absence of thorough regulations controlling the application of AI in legal services. There is an urgent need for precise ethical frameworks and accountability procedures, even while organisations like the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) have released early recommendations.[11] The unrestrained application of AI may weaken public trust in the legal system in the absence of adequate control.
Reshaping Legal Careers and Law Firm Structures:
AI is more likely to change the composition and operations of law firms than to replace attorneys. An emerging hybrid paradigm involves the collaboration of human lawyers and AI systems, with lawyers concentrating on strategic, creative, and client-facing work while AI does mechanical duties. Better service delivery and a more effective division of labour are made possible by this strategy. But it also presents difficulties, especially for trainees and younger solicitors. Junior associates have historically gained practical legal knowledge through research, draughting, and document review. Early-career solicitors run the danger of losing out on crucial training opportunities if AI replaces these fundamental duties. In order to solve this, some law firms are putting junior solicitors in “human-in-the-loop” positions where they verify and improve AI outputs or developing rotating programs that expose them to legal technology.
New positions in the legal sector are also being created by the development of AI. The increasing demand for experts who can connect the dots between law and technology is reflected in the increased demand for legal technologists, AI compliance officers, and legal engineers.[12] These roles reflect a change in the way legal services are conceived and provided, and they need for a combination of technical and legal expertise. Adopting these changes will put law firms in a better position to draw in tech-savvy clients and hire innovative personnel. On the other hand, businesses that are reluctant to embrace AI run the danger of becoming less competitive in a market that is changing quickly. “The future is not about man versus machine, but man with machine,” as legal futurist Richard Susskind has observed.[13]
To adjust to the AI era, the legal profession will need to go through structural and cultural changes in the future. Digital literacy, data ethics and legal technology use should all be taught in law education. Standards for the moral application of AI in legal services must be set by regulatory organisations to guarantee that emerging technologies improve rather than compromise access to justice. Law companies must simultaneously reevaluate their business strategies, shifting from billable hours to AI-enabled value-driven service delivery. There are opportunities as well as threats associated with this change. Even while some positions would be eliminated, others might be created, and legal services could become much more accessible and of higher quality overall.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, artificial intelligence will radically change the legal industry, but it won’t completely replace the necessity for attorneys. Lawyers can now concentrate on higher-value work that calls for human insight and ethical judgement while repetitive, time-consuming, and rule-based tasks are increasingly mechanised. Legal practitioners should welcome AI as a tool for creativity, teamwork, and better client service rather than opposing progress. Those who learn to collaborate with technology, rather than those who are afraid of it, will be the ones in charge of the legal profession in the future. AI will not take the position of solicitors in this new era; rather, it will spur the rebuilding of the legal system.
Reference(S):
[1] Richard Susskind, Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future (2nd edn, OUP 2017).
[2] PwC, ‘PwC and OpenAI-backed startup Harvey team up to bring AI to legal services’ (PwC UK, 15 March 2023) https://www.pwc.co.uk/press-room/press-releases/pwc-and-harvey-openai-partnership.html accessed 29 June 2025.
[3] Luminance, ‘Luminance Diligence’ (Luminance, 2023) https://www.luminance.com/product/diligence.html accessed 29 June 2025.
[4] Kira Systems, ‘About Kira’ (Kira Systems, 2023) https://kirasystems.com accessed 29 June 2025.
[5] DoNotPay, ‘DoNotPay – The World’s First Robot Lawyer’ (DoNotPay, 2023) https://www.donotpay.com accessed 29 June 2025.
[6] Richard Susskind, Online Courts and the Future of Justice (OUP 2019).
[7] Julia Angwin et al, ‘Machine Bias’ ProPublica (23 May 2016) https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing accessed 29 June 2025.
[8] OpenAI, ‘GPT-4 Technical Report’ (OpenAI, 2023) https://openai.com/research/gpt-4 accessed 29 June 2025.
[9] UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) 2016/679.
[10] Ministry of IT & Telecommunication (Pakistan), ‘Draft Personal Data Protection Bill 2021’ https://moitt.gov.pk/SiteImage/Misc/files/Personal_Data_Protection_Bill2021.pdf accessed 29 June 2025.
[11] Solicitors Regulation Authority, ‘Technology and Legal Services’ (SRA, 2021) https://www.sra.org.uk/sra/research/technology-and-legal-services/ accessed 29 June 2025.
[12] Dana Remus and Frank Levy, ‘Can Robots Be Lawyers? Computers, Lawyers, and the Practice of Law’ (2016) 30(3) Georgia State University Law Review 523.
[13] Richard Susskind, Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future (2nd edn, OUP 2017) 129.
