On how advances in information technology are disrupting a profession in similar ways to how robotics disrupted employment in manufacturing.
Machines v. Lawyers
As information technology advances, the legal profession faces a great disruption.
"But the plight of legal education and of the attorney workplace is also a harbinger of a looming transformation in the legal profession. Law is, in effect, an information technology—a code that regulates social life. And as the machinery of information technology grows exponentially in power, the legal profession faces a great disruption not unlike that already experienced by journalism, which has seen employment drop by about a third and the market value of newspapers devastated."
"Already one firm, Kiiac, is focusing on contracts. Kiiac’s idea is to evaluate different versions of agreements and determine, through the accumulation of data, the best way to write provisions. With the growing interconnectedness of data, machines can relate specific contracts to relevant court decisions, creating a dynamic for continual improvement of legal forms. A company like Kiiac shows that contracts can essentially become a computer code, rather than simply words on a page."
"Legal analytics will always be imperfect, providing likelihoods rather than certainties. Yet it does not need to be perfect—it can displace lawyers simply by making better predictions than they do. Lawyers are vulnerable on this front. After all, computers have far greater power to evaluate data—and they don’t feel."
"A relatively small number of very talented lawyers will benefit from the coming changes. These superstars will prosper by using the new technology to extend their reach and influence. For instance, the best lawyers will need fewer associates; they can use computers to enhance the value that they offer their clients."
"Lawyers practicing in highly specialized areas subject to rapid legal change—such as Dodd-Frank regulation—may also flourish, at least initially....But the large number of journeyman lawyers—such as those who do routine wills, vet house closings, write standard contracts, or review documents on a contractual basis—face a bleak future."
One of my best friends kind of mentioned something close to this a few months ago. He used to practice corporate law for Scadden-Arps in NYC, but left about 8 years ago. He mentioned for example, proof reading legal documents (such as the type of one that you have to click on "I Accept" in order to use "their" software) that was done by a $175,000 a year associate is now being done by computers more and more often, eliminating those high paying jobs.
