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While concerns persist that AI could automate many traditional legal tasks and reshape the profession, one legal tech leader argues it has never been a better time to enter the field, pointing to AI’s potential to accelerate the development and career progression of junior lawyers in never-before-seen ways.
Speaking on a recent episode of The Protégé Podcast, David Fischl, legal digital transformation lead partner and corporate and commercial team lead partner at Hicksons | Hunt & Hunt, stressed how AI has the potential to dramatically reshape the early years of legal careers, enabling junior lawyers to develop their skills more quickly and progress through the ranks faster.
For generations of lawyers, Fischl explained, the early years of practice were dominated by time-consuming administrative tasks, but he noted that AI now lets junior lawyers accelerate their learning and immerse themselves sooner in the human side of the profession.
“My view is now, it’s never been a better time to be a lawyer. When I started law, and as most people started law, the first few years were lots of document review, especially if you’re in litigation,” he said.
“But with AI, we can fast forward and really speed up the way lawyers learn, and so they can get into the more human part, which is why I became a lawyer.
Fischl described this shift in the early years of a legal career as a transformative moment for the profession, highlighting that junior lawyers today – armed with the right firm and technology – can learn and progress far faster than he ever did.
“It’s a wonderful thing for the legal profession. I think that as a junior lawyer, if you go to the right place and you have the right technology to help you, you’ll learn so much faster than I did when I was a junior lawyer,” he said.
The most immediate impact of AI, Fischl pointed out, comes when young lawyers use it to tackle essential but traditionally dreaded lower-level tasks.
“I think the AI is most effectively put into law with some of the lower-level tasks initially, and then as time goes by, AI will help with other tasks, but it’s really helping the tasks that lawyers never wanted to do in the first place,” he said.
Fischl argued that by embracing AI within firms, junior lawyers can accelerate their rise through the ranks, taking on greater responsibilities and supporting partners and senior associates with strategic work – an evolution that could strengthen the legal profession as a whole.
“Absolutely, because the way a law firm was structured initially, that’s what you wanted junior lawyers to do: review documents, and clients were very happy with junior lawyers reviewing those documents, because that’s what needed to be done,” he said.
“But the partners are busy people, and the senior associates are busy people, and they need help. So if junior lawyers aren’t spending time reviewing documents and they get to help the partners and the senior associates doing that strategy work, we’re going to have a strong legal profession.”
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