Will AI replace Lawyers?
AI reaches a large part of this job’s work.
48/100
High exposure
More exposed to AI than 74% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 12% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 80% of the work
What the job involves
Represent clients in criminal and civil litigation and other legal proceedings, draw up legal documents, or manage or advise clients on legal transactions. May specialize in a single area or may practice broadly in many areas of law.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(3)
- Interpret laws, rulings and regulations for individuals and businesses.
- Advise clients concerning business transactions, claim liability, advisability of prosecuting or defending lawsuits, or legal rights and obligations.
- Prepare legal briefs and opinions, and file appeals in state and federal courts of appeal.
Within reach(14)
- Analyze the probable outcomes of cases, using knowledge of legal precedents.
- Examine legal data to determine advisability of defending or prosecuting lawsuit.
- Prepare, draft, and review legal documents, such as wills, deeds, patent applications, mortgages, leases, and contracts.
- Gather evidence to formulate defense or to initiate legal actions by such means as interviewing clients and witnesses to ascertain the facts of a case.
- Study Constitution, statutes, decisions, regulations, and ordinances of quasi-judicial bodies to determine ramifications for cases.
and 9 more
Out of reach(4)
- Confer with colleagues with specialties in appropriate areas of legal issue to establish and verify bases for legal proceedings.
- Supervise legal assistants.
- Represent clients in court or before government agencies.
- Select jurors, argue motions, meet with judges, and question witnesses during the course of a trial.
Also called
Attorney · District Attorney · Legal Advisor · Legal Counsel · Real Estate Attorney · Attorney at Law · Attorney General · Counsel
Related jobs
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics