In this episode of TechLaw10, Punter Southall Law’s Jonathan Armstrong & Eric Sinrod, Professor and Duane Morris LLP attorney, chat with special guest Nigel Cannings. This is episode 303 in the popular TechLaw10 series. You can listen to earlier podcasts here.

Nigel is the author of The Displacement Dilemma: How Human Expertise Survives an AI-Driven World. Now in its second edition, the book explores AI’s impact on professional services, including the legal profession. It asks whether the legal profession faces long-term problems as the opportunities to train junior lawyers are displaced by AI. You can find out more about Nigel’s book here: https://a.co/0gQmaDnX

Nigel, Jonathan & Eric discuss a number of issues, including:

• How AI has changed law firms.
• What the future of legal tech looks like.
• How AI risks removing the work through which people become experts.
• How do we distinguish tasks AI can safely take over from the experiences junior lawyers need to develop their own judgment?
• If firms recruit fewer trainees and newly qualified lawyers because AI can do more of their work, where will the experienced mid-level lawyers of five or ten years come from? Is each firm’s short-term efficiency creating a long-term problem for the profession?
• Is diversity an issue too? Is the legal profession in danger of becoming more elitist?
• Who should bear the cost of developing the next generation of lawyers if clients no longer pay for routine junior work?
• If we accept that demand for junior lawyers will decline, should universities and law schools still push so many students through the system? Do we need to have a more honest conversation about opportunities at the university level?
• How do you train people to supervise AI?
• Will law firms focus more on rainmakers and less on delivery?
• Will this mean changes to law firms’ ownership model?
• Should law firms build or buy tech?

Nigel uses the term “articled clerk,” the traditional term for a trainee solicitor in England and Wales.

The first NYSBA paper Jonathan talks about is here. The second report on charging, etc., is here…. The Law Society guidance Nigel talks about is here: https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/topics/ai-an….

You can find out more about Jonathan Armstrong here. You can find out more about Eric Sinrod here.

You can find out more about Nigel here: http://linkedin.com/in/nigelcannings