> The problem is that much of what makes a "good" lawyer comes from years of doing unglamorous work as a junior, financed by clients. If AI reduces the ability of firms to subsidize training the next generation of lawyers, you get fewer "good" lawyers and the whole market keeps eroding.

That is what AI will do, and firms will figure out how to adapt. To be fair, this trend has been going on for some time now already. Clients want attorneys with experience and judgment to be on the hook in real trials, mergers, etc. There’s only so many of those folks. The trend of the last several decades has been pretty steady overall headcount at firms despite large increases in the amount of legal work, and ever increasing demand for the limited set of seasoned attorneys.

Firms have not done a great job cultivating the next generation against the backdrop of those trends. But that’s true in a lot of white collar jobs. And AI will make that problem more acute.

But—lawyers are a transaction cost and it’s good for the economy to automate as much of it as we can!