Among the main concerns of lawyers is the potential decline in the quality of legal services provided to clients through AI. They believe that such technologies create an illusion of accessibility to certain solutions.
“This discrepancy makes clients doubt your competence,” noted one of the lawyers.
Recent changes in the market have been a vivid testament to the possible impact of AI on the legal field. For example, shares of companies offering legal software, such as LegalZoom.com and Thomson Reuters, plummeted after the release of a new product from Anthropic, a company focused on AI development.
Elliot Rush, a law professor and economist from ETH Zurich, believes that the market's reaction was somewhat exaggerated.
According to Anthropic, the new tool is well-suited for document analysis but cannot replace systems like Westlaw or LexisNexis, as it is not integrated with databases of case law and legislation: “There is currently no product that can simultaneously replace many existing legal solutions.”
The complexity of the situation lies in the fact that while AI significantly increases productivity, it threatens the traditional hourly billing model for lawyers.
If technologies allow tasks to be completed faster, this, in turn, reduces the time spent working. Lawyers cannot bill for time that exceeds the actual time spent on completing a task, as stated in recent recommendations by the American Bar Association regarding AI.
Nevertheless, observers warn that rapid adoption of new technologies in the legal field should not be expected. They believe the process will be lengthy.
“There will be loud claims about the capabilities of technologies, but many of them will turn out to be mere empty promises,” noted J.H. “Rip” Verkerke, a law professor at the University of Virginia. “Many law firms have already realized this.”
