Will AI Soon Replace Lawyers and Judges?

2 Min. Reading Time

Through artificial intelligence (KI) new jobs can of course also arise. At the same time, the technology is increasingly penetrating qualified professions that require many years of training or a hard degree, such as those of lawyers, for example.

First, a reassurance for everyone who studied law: lawyers are currently in demand like never before. There is no talk of a “lawyer glut” like there was up until the 1990s, when many had to turn to taxi driving or other jobs.

As a BR24 report notes, AI podcast host Marie Kilk spent a year fighting an airline in court and ultimately received compensation of 250,10 Euro. The twist was that she never spoke to a lawyer, but used an automated service to claim her compensation.

Legal Tech is the magic word

According to the BR24 article, companies such as FlightRight and DoNotPay have specialized in helping consumers assert their rights, for example with flights, gym contracts or penalty notices. As “Legal Tech” startups, they already use automated systems for cases that follow a clear‑cut procedure. This makes the legal route accessible to many people. However, these services are by no means comparable to the complex work performed by human lawyers.

ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude from Anthropic and other intelligent language models can gradually become competition for them or at least support them in their work. Consumers could soon save themselves the search for a lawyer, which is becoming increasingly difficult as the baby‑boomers retire from the profession. ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude from Anthropic and other intelligent language models can gradually become competition for them or at least support them in their work.

Consumers could soon spare themselves the hunt for a lawyer, which is becoming ever more challenging as the baby‑boomers exit the profession.

Surprisingly good AI contract texts

How far AI can already take on more demanding legal tasks was tested in the aforementioned AI podcast by Marie Kilk in an experiment. Munich construction lawyer Johannes Hegemann participated, providing a client’s brief for which various AI models were to draft a demolition contract.

The result also surprised the seasoned lawyer Hegemann, who called one of the AI‑generated contracts “already considerably more differentiated” and said: “You find payment terms, final provisions and clauses here that you would normally see in a contract.” He even found the structure of the AI contract fairly similar to the one he had drafted himself – and that after only 30 seconds of processing time.

“First, a reassurance for everyone who studied law: lawyers are currently in demand like never before.”

Where is the liability, where is the data protection?

According to the article, data protection and liability could prove problematic. Moreover, real‑world tasks are often more varied and complex than in the AI‑podcast experiment.

Regarding liability, Leif Lundbaek, CEO of the Berlin startup Xayn, which provides an AI bot for law firms, is also realistic that some questions remain unanswered: “With large transactions it’s not just about the legal details, but about the risk.” In doubt, companies want a firm that also assumes responsibility for mistakes. AI systems cannot yet offer that. 

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