The Evolution of Legal Knowledge Work in an Age of Brilliant (?) Technologies: From Robo-Lawyer to Digital Law Clerk

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (‘genAI’) is being hailed by legal technology insiders and many in the profession as a major disruptive force within the legal practice ecosystem. Unlike earlier forms of digital innovation, genAI has the potential to support and possibly take over at least some of the diagnostic and analytical functions performed by human lawyers. It thus adds a new dimension to the debate over how (and how much) AI will be a substitutive technology, displacing humans from knowledge work, and how it might serve to augment and enhance human expertise in performing knowledge roles. At present, however, we have relatively little objective understanding of how it is being used..