Harvard Law prof says technology will replace some lawyers - the question is how many

HLS Professor David Wilkins, Director of Harvard's Center for the Legal Profession, which studies the impact of globalization on the delivery of legal services, says that technology will "of course" replace the need to hire some lawyers. The only question is how large the impact will be. His remarks are included in an article entitled The Laws of Adaptation published in the fall edition of the Harvard Law Bulletin. Here's an excerpt:

The warning bells have been ringing for at least two decades: The legal profession as we’ve known it is doomed, and lawyers must adapt—or face extinction. For the most part, these dire predictions have been ignored, even as globalization and technology have revolutionized markets, affecting everything from airline travel to taxicabs. Yes, law firms have been outsourcing legal research to India, and electronic discovery is taking over some basic tasks. But lawyers have tended to see themselves as immune: a guild of highly educated advisers whose wisdom, savvy and deep understanding of a complex series of laws are irreplaceable.

 

Then a computer named Watson beat a human on “Jeopardy!” Now all bets are off.

 

Watson’s victory showed that artificial intelligence can master what was considered a uniquely human realm: using judgment to select best options after sorting through huge amounts of complex information communicated in real language. Cancer doctors from the nation’s top research institutions were among the first to recognize the broad implications. Today, they are working with the IBM Watson project to sort through massive amounts of data to try to find new ways to diagnose and cure the disease. If a computer can displace doctors—or at least, significant aspects of what doctors do—who’s next?

 

In fact, lawyers may be far more susceptible than physicians, says Harvard Law Professor David B. Wilkins ’80, vice dean for global initiatives on the legal profession. As a rules-based system, law is similar to chess, he notes, in which Watson’s predecessor, Deep Blue, prevailed 14 years earlier, beating the world chess champion.

 

“The Watson people say, ‘We won’t replace doctors or lawyers; we’ll just help them be more effective,’” Wilkins laughs, adding, “But of course, they will replace some doctors and lawyers.” The question, he says, is which kinds of lawyers, and how big a share of the legal market?

 

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Continue reading here. 

Hat tip to the TaxProf Blog.

(jbl).