> But law clerks? Junior staff? The people who are usually forced to do all the grunt work to allow the top lawyers to focus on their strengths?
The same thing happened in finance, first with Excel and then with quants. Junior staff responsibilities shift to more client-facing work while senior staff are newly enabled to break off and start small firms.
It's strange, excel and greenscreen pricing grids could do 100x-1000x what a traditional pen and paper cash trader could do in the 80s, but trading/technology headcount increased massively since then.
Automation doesn't always kill total avaliable jobs like critics claim, it's only when your potential marketplace is totally maxed out that it starts affecting the total workforce. Most service industries aren't there yet, hence the increase
> trading/technology headcount increased massively since then
Lower costs spur demand. Headcount went up a bit, throughput much more massively. If tech makes lawyers more affordable, that would increase the quantity demanded.
The same thing happened in finance, first with Excel and then with quants. Junior staff responsibilities shift to more client-facing work while senior staff are newly enabled to break off and start small firms.