Cast by pjc
Thanks for the heads-up on "Cupertino" (ep398, 20:33), @nounishprof! Fictional dramatisation grounded in plausible law-firm behaviour? Right up my alley! Are you a law professor, Prof? Or a lawyer professing in an adjacent domain? I find the lawyer-client relationship endlessly fascinating, particularly its epistemics: legal services as a credence good, the asymmetries of knowledge and authority, and the possibility of redesigning the client:<lawyer> relationship around principles of collaborative dignity and data sovereignty. Here, <lawyer> is really a stand-in for any high-value, high-leverage relationship involving asymmetric expertise. So much of this seems ripe for a fundamental rethink, given how spectacularly generative AI is redrawing these professional landscapes. And we're barely five minutes into this new era!
6 replies
love this framing, credence goods and asymmetric expertise really is the perfect lens for whats coming. the redesign conversation is overdue tbh
loving Cupertino so far — recommend! farcaster.xyz/nounishprof/0x95e07648
Lawyer who’s been retired and teaching for past 16 yrs. Cupertino is so good!!! You’ll love it!
And yes ai is changing so much. On the plus side, small law firms/sole practitioners can even out the playing field w/ai. But paralegals are going to be much less needed.
I think the REALLY interesting design question is what happens OUTSIDE the law firm, when the client is no longer so dependent on the firm as the organising centre of legal knowledge, process, and relationships. Of course, law firms will harness AI themselves. But the resulting gains will likely accrue to the firms, without fundamentally changing the client–lawyer relationship. And that's the opportunity we risk missing. Here's where a Jevons-style possibility gets fascinating! As the cost of legal work collapses, I suspect demand could EXPAND dramatically. But who captures that expanding opportunity? Some of the most extraordinarily competent people I've ever had the good fortune of watching operate have been paralegals. What if, rather than making them redundant, AI actually UNLOCKS them? Not simply "paralegals equipped with AI", but paralegals operating within a much richer, citizen-first collaborative meta-medium, where the client retains their context, history, and agency, and brings lawyers, paralegals, and other specialists around the work with clear boundaries, provenanced version-control and accountability. The lawyer still brings professional judgment and accountability where genuinely needed. But crucially, the new arrangement should require LESS actual lawyer involvement per matter, not more. More work undertaken by capable clients and independent specialists, with lawyers brought in precisely where their expertise and professional accountability are required. Perhaps we can also design out some of the more problematic incentives of legal services as a "credence good" - not by eliminating the asymmetry of expertise, but by preventing it from becoming an asymmetry of agency, transparency, and control. Suddenly we have the possibility of MORE human expertise becoming valuable, not less. A richer ecosystem of collaboration, rather than merely more efficient law firms. For me, the really exciting design principle is collaborative dignity: putting the citizen at the centre of relationships traditionally organised around asymmetric expertise and authority. Law is just one particularly interesting instance of a much broader problem! • More legal work • Less lawyer dependency • More human capability. 🦦 Anyhow, (bla bla bla)...nice little opportunity to consolidate some thoughts on this in my head - I'm super looking forward to enjoying "Cupertino"...fun! As always, thanks Prof! 🫶
Ah but the paralegal can’t practice law! At least in the US. You can’t provide legal services to another without being a member of the Bar (ie pass the Bar exam and be sworn in in whatever jurisdiction you are practicing). Even I can’t because it’s by state. I passed and was a member of the Massachusetts Bar but I retired after I moved to Florida. I didn’t want to continue paying the annual fee. HOWEVER you act on your own behalf Pro Se — so that’s where this is helpful. If someone wants to create their own contracts or act as their own lawyer in court they can. For simple things this is great. BUT ai still gets a lot wrong. Some lawyers have depended on AI and AI has made up cases to support their case and gotten in trouble by the courts. So everyone needs to be really careful and double check. For simple things like contracts it’s huge. I’ve also had it check things for me by giving it a link to a statute and then having it summarize. Massive unlock for things like that.
And I can’t wait for you to watch Cupertino, especially into the second and third episode. We’ll have something else to chat about!
