While I agree on the premise – (written*) lawyer activity being reduced to putting signatures under things – I’m not so sure the gilded part is how it’ll actually play out in practice.

It might also become a race to the bottom, since you can’t deliver on quality better than others anymore, you’ll have to put effort towards quantity. That could mean firms might pressure lawyers to sign as much as possible in a given time, while they’re still personally at risk/responsible for the documents they put out. That means either very hectic reading, and missing details, or no reading at all.

*And like socializer said, the written documents are only one part of the job.

That's already a thing. You have paralegals do most of the grungy work for much less than your hourly rate. You still have to show up to court and talk to customers, and these parts are not going away.

Or... the tools get to the point where we don't need a human for expertise but accountability and the role becomes more about ethics, thereby lowering the bar. (PUN!)

I was about to suggest that AI might teach people to become lawyers for cheap and they can just take the BAR exam and become a lawyer...

But then I looked into it and I see that you actually do have to go to certain schools to become a lawyer. Having the knowledge is not enough, you have to pass through the proper (and expensive) gates as well.

I'm not really surprised.

This is just SWEs and Consultants discovering the utility of professional regulation. It's still a tough job.

Do you predict the same paralegal crisis people are claiming about junior swe's?

don't most developers do this already? Senior developers. Juniors are having a hard time.