40 Asian Legal Business | January-February 2025 Asian Legal Business is seeking thought-provoking opinion pieces from readers on subjects ranging from Asia’s legal industry to law firm management, technology and others. Email ranajit.dam@tr.com for submission guidelines. Fixing AI’s law firm associate gap By Bryce Engelland The Back Page Bryce Engelland is an industry analyst focusing on both international economics and the global legal market. He reviews law firm financial data and economic trends to provide insights into the changing world. A version of this piece was originally published by the Thomson Reuters Institute. Reprinted with permission. The development of lawyers typically involves three phases: i) learning to think like a lawyer; ii) learning to act like a lawyer; and iii) learning to actually be a lawyer. Law school curriculum typically addresses the first two phases. However, the third phase doesn’t typically happen until a lawyer starts practicing in the field. Historically, much of that third phase of learning involves relatively low-stakes and potentially dreary tasks, which have, nevertheless, become important teaching tools as fledgling lawyers grow into their new professional identities. Today, however, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies pose a potential threat to this developmental model by altering the types of work lawyers actually do. The automation of routine tasks historically performed by first- and second-year associates results in a gap within the traditional talent pipeline, seriously challenging law firms’ conventional training models. After all, how are firms supposed to bring up senior associates if the work that traditionally transformed younger associates into more senior lawyers has been automated away? This conundrum is not unique to the legal sector or other professional services. Indeed, several insights can be gleaned from the engineering profession’s own history with technological automation and how it forced changes to a centuries-old training structure. Up until the end of the 20th century, draftsmen played a pivotal role in the engineering world as essential stepping-stones to becoming experienced engineers. These skilled individuals were responsible for translating engineers’ concepts into precise technical drawings, which served as blueprints for manufacturing and construction. Draftsmen meticulously hand-drew every detail, ensuring accuracy without the aid of computers. However, the rise of computer-aided drafting (CAD) technology in the late 1970s and early 80s dramatically transformed the engineering profession. CAD systems automate many tasks traditionally performed by draftsmen, allowing engineers and designers to create and modify designs with unprecedented speed and precision. This technological advancement rendered the role of the draftsman effectively extinct as manual drafting needs diminished. The elimination of the draftsman role created significant challenges for engineering firms. Without the traditional drafting work to train new designers, firms could no longer rely on the progressive advancement that had been their method of training designers for over a century. The traditional talent ladder for developing experienced designers was shattered. To adapt, engineering firms developed a multifaceted approach, starting by placing new engineers directly into designer roles. This required a significant change in the training model, with greater mentorship and supervision to ensure new engineers acquired the skills needed for complex tasks. Experienced designers took a larger role in training and supervising young engineers, as these fresh designers worked on projects that would traditionally have required years of preparation. The benefits of this approach outweighed the costs. Senior designers had more time to mentor due to their own automated tools, allowing inexperienced designers to develop faster. Simultaneously, engineering firms collaborated with educational institutions to rebuild the academic structure for upcoming engineers, focusing less on drafting and more on technological skills essential for CAD proficiency. Emphasis was placed on advanced engineering and design skills, ensuring new hires were capable of performing high-level tasks required in modern engineering and were well-supported. The legal professional has already experienced some of the changes expected from AI-driven technologies, such as with digital research and cite-checking, albeit on a much smaller scale. Yet, with those changes being turbo-charged by impact of GenAI, dramatically changing traditional training models will be a significant undertaking for law firms, particularly if such changes require more involvement of partners and other senior lawyers, especially around mentoring and supervising the work of new lawyers. Similar to what occurred with engineering, this legal training evolution will also require discussions with law schools about the new skills that lawyers entering the profession will need to succeed.
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