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You keep going to the Corporate merger thing, which I may even grant is on point. AIs increase the size in productivity terms if not headcount and complexity of firms in weird ways, I'm sure.
But by most counts less than <40% of all lawyers are employed in those huge firms and corporate environments.
more data here:
https://www-media.floridabar.org/uploads/2019/03/2018-Economics-Survey-Report-Final.pdf
It seems like you expect that the larger corporate merger firms will just keep growing in size to absorb the rest of the lawyers practicing elsewhere?
Because most lawyers aren't working on complex corporate law.
The average person's will won't get more complex. A home purchase agreement won't get more complex, and small-business contracts won't get much more complex.
Likewise, most civil suits involving two private citizens or small corporations won't get more complex.
I sure hope criminal defense and prosecution won't get more complex.
So going with your model, this is implying a future where almost all legal services are provided by a relatively small handful of huge and growing firms having to handle increasingly complex transactional law, with complexity increasing with the power of the AIs in use, ad infinitum.
Oh, I see what you mean. Again -- could go any direction. Home sales are handled with less complexity than a corporate acquisition basically because there are fewer resources to spend on advisors. What if lawyers become 10x more efficient? Maybe every home sale starts to resemble what a corporate merger looked like twenty years ago. It could happen. Same with small business contracts.
They absolutely will! Why wouldn't they? Here there is a direct relationship between the amount people are willing to spend and the marginal advantage it gives them over their counterparty. Why would that ratio change? You'd get more detailed briefs, more comprehensive discovery and document review, etc., all for the same price that you pay today.
They absolutely would, for the same reason as civil suits, except more so, because so much more is on the line! Wealthy people who have been indicted spend through the nose on criminal defense, which suggests that ability to pay is the only thing constraining less wealthy defendants. If legal services become 10x more efficient, you should expect them to consume 10x as much.
No, you could still have smaller firms and solo practitioners, and each of them would be 10x more efficient than they are today too. Their work product would just become a lot more sophisticated by today's standards.
Or you get a simple interface that allows both parties to upload all the evidence they believe supports their case and the arguments they wish to put forward, in plain English, the AI churns through it for a couple minutes then renders (literally, renders) a verdict that the parties can either accept or appeal to a higher-resolution appellate judge AI.
So, SO much of the cost of civil litigation is tied up in accessing the Judicial resources necessary to have hearings on motions and waiting on decisions to be rendered and arguing over tiny little points of contention for literal hours.
And it can all be avoided if people prefer the simplicity of a provably neutral robojudge that responds to motions instantly rather than scheduling a hearing 60 days out.
Similar to how arbitration clauses are a common way to avoid the costs of litigation because people DON'T want to pay for litigation when they can avoid it!
Imma strongly disagree here if only because AI tech will almost certainly make it trivial to solve the vast majority of crimes in a way that make prosecution extremely easy. The sheer amount of evidence that could be brought to bear in our increasing surveillance state would hurdle the 'reasonable doubt' standard pretty easily.
Because the vast, vast majority of accused criminals aren't wealthy people.
So more people will be accepting plea offers, which are also vastly simplified because AI assists Judges in determining appropriate sentences.
But would there ACTUALLY be 10x as much work to be done? Where is all this pent up demand currently located?
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