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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   16870 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026

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I think this sort of thing is really difficult to predict. It seems pretty clear that there will be some minimum demand for attorneys in the future:

By law, corporations must be represented by licensed attorneys;

It seems likely that a human being will be needed to make arguments to a jury;

Consulting with an attorney, who then queries an LLM, gives you a stronger argument that the communication is privileged than if you just query the LLM directly.

On the other hand, it seems plausible that the number of lawyers required will drop by quite a lot. If 50% of legal work can be done by LLMs, then a lot of lawyers will still have jobs, but many (including a lot of new grads) will end up unemployed.

But will it really work like that? There has been an explosion in litigation over the last 40 years, in part because technology made it more economically feasible to pursue disputes. One of the dirty little secrets of the US Court system is that a lot of the time judges throw out meritorious cases because they believe the system is just too busy to be bothered. A lot of wrongs never get litigated simply because there just aren't enough lawyers and judges to handle them.

So it's entirely possible that with AI, there will be more demand for lawyers than ever.

I just don't see anyway to sustain the pipeline if fresh Associates CANNOT outperform the LLMs, especially on price.

If a law firm can spin up an arbitrary amount of 'agents' that have all the requisite knowledge to handle a given legal issue, maybe they hire some attorneys to wrangle the agents and sign off on their output.

But that doesn't give those attorneys good legal experience they can translate into advancing their career. That's a step above doc review.

Hell, AI should be able to replace most Law School professors. It SHOULD become possible to become a competent lawyer without setting foot in a law school campus.

So naively, what I see coming down the pike is a massive spike in the 'supply' of legal knowledge that is on tap... and no clear reason why people should prefer the person who got a 6-figure loan for law school (and has to bill accordingly) over the $20-$200/month uberexpert that lives in their pocket. So from whence comes demand for human lawyer?

Basically one thing: Accountability. They can be punished for screwups.

One of the dirty little secrets of the US Court system is that a lot of the time judges throw out meritorious cases because they believe the system is just too busy to be bothered. A lot of wrongs never get litigated simply because there just aren't enough lawyers and judges to handle them.

One possible outcome is that governments spend money beefing up their legal systems, staffing out enough judges and clerks and such to actually meet the surge.

But courts are a pure cost center, so I just doubt it happens. Instead I think more disputes go to private arbitration, or maybe AI Mediators become a popular option. I think the demand for NONJUDICIAL resolutions surges! They're cheaper and possibly even more accurate. And if mediation and arbitration becomes popular... guess what all those rules about attorneys being needed to argue for a jury or represent a corpo get sidestepped very neatly.

You’ll still need clerical workers to supervise the LLM’s or something analogous to that. I’ll never be sold on the great transformative possibilities of them due to the mathematical impossibility of resolving the hallucination problem. How are you going to trust that it correctly read that Congressional omnibus bill?

How do you trust a human assistant did so?

You verify.

So then what problems is the LLM solving in that case? The advantage doesn’t seem to be all that great.

Its doing the same work but faster, cheaper, and probably more thoroughly, and can be scaled up arbitrarily.

I just don't see anyway to sustain the pipeline if fresh Associates CANNOT outperform the LLMs, especially on price.

I agree that the BIGLAW model, as it exists today (e.g. new litigation associates spend 2 or 3 years in the library) is very unlikely to survive mature LLMs. But possibly there will be a spike in demand for warm bodies to be in the courtroom.

One possible outcome is that governments spend money beefing up their legal systems, staffing out enough judges and clerks and such to actually meet the surge.

But courts are a pure cost center, so I just doubt it happens.

Well the way it happens is that the legislature passes some new law which gives people a cause of action for some wrong. Or the courts expand the concept of due process. More lawsuits or proceedings get filed. The courts get more of a backlog. So more judges need to get hired and more courthouses built. And in fact, there are far more judges now than there were in the past.

Here's an example: It used to be that if you were denied some government benefit, such as welfare or social security or unemployment insurance, you were out of luck. But nowadays, you have a right to a speedy hearing before an administrative law judge. Making more work for attorneys. Possibly in the future this process will continue.

Right, but I don't see the incentive for governments to expand the existing systems, which are already getting seriously backlogged (at least around here).

Right, but I don't see the incentive for governments to expand the existing systems

The trend over the years has been to expand and expand and expand -- despite the fact that it costs the government money.

I mean, expanding areas where they are capable of grifting and grafting.

The courts aren't particularly suitable for that.

The courts are more just targets for ideological subversion.

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