‘It is very difficult to see how AI competes with what David Higgins does.’ Looking back five years to our 2018 Global 100 debate, this remark from Milbank’s Suhrud Mehta, one of many eminent City leaders around the table, is striking in more ways than one.
The industry has come to think of the now ubiquitous subject of AI as a recent thing, prompted by the advent of ChatGPT, which we may be forgiven for forgetting has only been around since November 2022. The reality is, law firm leaders have been debating the impact of such technology for years, while singularly failing to reach consensus on quite how it can solve the age-old conundrum of increasing efficiencies, decreasing the load of banal grunt work, while at the same time not putting stars like Kirkland’s Higgins out of a job.
The truth is, some of the other choice comments from five years ago could just as easily have been uttered today.
Stephan Eilers, Freshfields’ erstwhile managing partner, said at the time: ‘Technology will not take the specifics of our work, which is privilege, protecting clients and having knowhow in legal matters. There are principles of education and the regulatory framework that it will be difficult for AI to replicate.’
Meanwhile Akin London head Sebastian Rice conjectured: ‘Among the firms that maintain huge numbers and massive global footprints, there will be those that reduce in size because AI will take away the need for loads of people. However, we will be much more efficient; profitability could go much higher.’
As Brad Karp, chair of Paul Weiss, says in a recent interview: ‘The one change that will be transformative is the looming introduction of generative AI. I believe it will be arriving much sooner, and have a much more profound impact, than most expect.’
Paul Jenkins, Ashurst’s global chief exec, is of a similar mind: ‘The biggest opportunity in the legal market is the use of technology to supplement service provision. Everyone has been waiting for major disruption to occur there. Those firms that can adapt and provide those services will be able to seize the opportunity and excel. Equally, those firms that don’t adapt will lose their market position.’
More recently, a ring around City managing partners yields completely polarised views on the question of whether, in the next five years, the number of partners offering clients premium legal advice in exchange for the big bucks will substantially shrink, giving rise to employees primarily tasked with controlling and managing AI and reviewing the documents it produces.
If it does say so itself, ChatGPT thinks its impact on the industry by 2028 will be ‘significant and multifaceted’, and it reels off the manifold labour-saving benefits lawyers can expect it to impart in the next five years. It also urges us not to be afraid of it (well, it would say that, wouldn’t it?) but offers some words of warning: ‘Lawyers need to be aware of the ethical and legal implications of using AI, including issues related to bias, privacy, and responsibility for AI-generated advice or errors.’
And therein lies the rub. The recent demands of money with menaces from Allen & Overy over data allegedly held by cyber criminal group LockBit is the ultimate cautionary tale. As long as a threat looms over the security of client data, the technology can never truly be trusted. David, if you’re reading this, rest assured – your job is safe… for now.