A few years ago, if someone had told me that a machine could draft contracts, summarize hundreds of pages of legal documents in seconds, conduct legal research, and even answer legal questions, I would have laughed but fast forward a few years and today, I can pull out my phone and watch A.I do all of those things.
Which raises an uncomfortable question, will my job as an aspiring legal rep still exist in ten years? It is a question that is no longer limited to factory workers or people in routine administrative roles. Accountants are asking it, Journalists are asking it and increasingly, lawyers are asking it too but to an extent of course their is only so much a machine can do, can it stand up and represent you in court. No but i watched this film of recent called Mercy and the justice system was governed entirely by A.I so it was kinda an interesting concept and was definitely worth thinking over. A judge that is governed entirely by A.I without the probability of being bribed or corrupted is definitely something.
The legal profession has always enjoyed a certain aura of security. Law is one of those careers people traditionally viewed as future-proof, but then you cant deny the fact that a certain portion of legal work involves tasks that are repetitive and information based and as such with regards to this aspect A.I had inevtiably crept in.
These are precisely the kinds of tasks technology is becoming exceptionally good at.
What once took a junior lawyer several days can now be accomplished in minutes with the assistance of sophisticated software. This is not a futuristic prediction. It is already happening. In Nigeria, many law firms still operate traditionally, but technology is gradually finding its way into legal practice. Even the legal work today in many firms are operating on a hybrid 9-5 basis 3 days on site and 2 days work from home.
Every few months of course a new headline appears claiming that artificial intelligence is coming for our jobs and somewhere on that list, legal rep will inevitably make an appearance. So, will the job of a legal rep still exist in ten years? I believe it will, because the job itself has always been about people and as long as human beings continue to have conflicts, ambitions, fears, relationships, and dreams, there will be a need for lawyers to help navigate them.