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Why Lawyers Will Never Be Replaced By Robots

The next major shift in labor in this country will be robots/Artificial Intelligence/automation replacing humans. It is happening already. After all, robots don't get sick. Robots don't take vacation or personal days. Robots don't need health insurance. You don't have to pay robots overtime.

So what about lawyers? Could we be replaced? I was watching Charlie Rose interview an AI expert from Carnegie Mellon University. He said one of the first industries that will see a change to robots would be the legal industry. A couple other sources have said the same thing.

My response: the idea that lawyers will be replaced by robots is idiotic.

My first draft of this laid out numerous reasons why these people don't understand the many different kinds of lawyers there are and the many different kinds of things lawyers do. But the draft was too long. So I thought I'd focus on the main reason, which these people don't get.

There is a fundamental reason why lawyers will never be replaced by robots, and the reason is that the people who write and pass laws tend to be lawyers (!), and lawyers will never write themselves out of existence. In other words, robots will never replace lawyers because lawyers (state legislatures) will never allow it to happen. Laws regulating the legal profession will always require human (i.e. human lawyer) involvement in for-pay legal services.

Similar laws already exist. For instance, non-lawyers cannot do "lawyer" things and get paid for it. That is called the unauthorized practice of law.

Also, attorney ethics laws do not allow non-lawyers to make legal decisions on behalf of the lawyer's client because that interferes with the lawyer's own, independent, professional judgment.

Ha, you may say, this is just sleazy lawyers protecting themselves. Yes in the sense that lawyers will never write themselves out of existence. But no in that legal clients really do need human involvement. There is a relationship of confidence and trust between lawyer and client. Clients need guidance. Clients often have a lot of questions. Clients often need to be reassured about things as a legal matter moves along. Also, human lawyers can relate to their clients' problems, robots can't.

Again, this discussion could go on and on, but I'll leave off here. Lawyers will never be replaced by robots, but that is a good thing for both lawyers and clients.


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