Law looked like a safe bet. Ask a junior lawyer now.
Summary
The piece opens with the launch of Harvey, a legal‑AI platform that uses actor Gabriel Macht—known for playing Harvey Specter—to market its tools. By foregrounding a familiar TV persona, the campaign highlights the platform’s goal of augmenting legal expertise without the traditional, costly credentialing process, and it frames the human side of lawyering as increasingly vital.
The article then surveys how AI is reshaping the legal profession: China’s Supreme People’s Court has integrated AI into evidence review, case retrieval, and draft judgments, with judges reporting a 50 % increase in cleared cases. In the West, corporate legal departments expect productivity gains from AI, yet only a minority of law firms deliver on that promise. Big‑law firms such as Paul Weiss and Clifford Chance are experimenting with Harvey, while concerns about fabricated citations, bias, and the erosion of the credential as a protective moat are raised. The author concludes by questioning whether the legal profession’s long‑standing asymmetries will be undermined by AI and what, if any, new gatekeepers will emerge.
(Source:Iol)