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AI tools are reshaping graduate training at Australia’s top law firms, transforming how young lawyers learn, develop practical skills, and prepare for the profession’s future.
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve in the legal profession, questions are emerging about its impact on legal education, early-career opportunities and the future role of lawyers.
Speaking to Lawyers Weekly, Marcus Hannah, lead counsel APJ at Docusign, shared his perspective on how legal professionals can adopt AI responsibly while maintaining human oversight and professional judgement.
Hannah explored how emerging technologies could advance the careers of junior lawyers, enabling them to offload routine administrative tasks and create opportunities to develop other skills earlier in their professional journeys.
This idea has become apparent among Australian BigLaw firms that are adapting graduate training, automating routine tasks while prioritising critical thinking, commercial awareness and client-facing skills to prepare young lawyers for higher-value work earlier in their careers.
AI in legal education
As AI becomes an inevitability in legal practice, Hannah emphasised that technology should support, rather than replace, legal expertise.
“For legal teams, AI should augment and complement our expertise, not replace it,” Hannah said.
“Relying on general-purpose tools without proper legal context carries genuine legal, operational, and reputational risks.
“With proper safeguards, legal teams can use AI as a strategic tool to manage contract risk safely and with confidence.”
Hannah highlighted Docusign’s role in adopting secure systems that assist legal teams to implement AI responsibly.
“Docusign is creating an open system of action for agreements, unifying contract data, workflows, approvals, identity and obligations across the enterprise,” he said.
Despite advances in automation, Hannah stressed that human oversight is essential to responsible AI use in the legal profession.
“Human oversight becomes more critical, not less.”
Future of young lawyers
Hannah noted that AI could transform early-career legal roles by freeing junior lawyers from mundane tasks and accelerating their development by focusing on training them in more complex areas.
“By eliminating manual administrative tasks, AI will hopefully allow junior lawyers to step into high-value advisory roles, strategic negotiation, and risk management much earlier in their careers than previously possible,” Hannah said.
“A lawyer must still set risk tolerances, govern who has the authority to legally bind the business, and manage complex strategic relationships.
“The entire ecosystem is moving towards an agentic future, where AI agents assist with contract drafting, analysis, and routine negotiation based on established playbooks and trusted infrastructure.”
Hannah outlined Docusign’s role in helping legal teams safely incorporate automated tools throughout agreement life cycles, empowering practitioners to concentrate on strategic priorities.
“Docusign’s vision is to give today’s legal departments the ability to integrate specialised tools such as Harvey, Legora, and Thomson Reuters, directly into their agreement systems through Docusign IAM,” Hannah said.
With access to trusted AI tools and agreement data, Hannah sees an opportunity for legal teams to work more efficiently and deliver greater value to businesses.
“When AI has access to trusted agreement data, legal teams can move faster, reduce risk, and deliver greater value across the enterprise,” he said.
