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Leave out the rare times that our work is truly on the edge.

In most cases for any defined set of facts there are a defined set of relevant legal considerations.

The AI programming challenge to turn this process into algorithms is relatively straight forward.

The inhibiting factor is that there has never been a need or desire to scope the body of law and the operative factors that must be programmed so that Fact + Law = Decision&Advice.

Perhaps differently and more accurately put, there has never been anyone willing to try such a massive endeavour.

We should soon see simpler or more commercially exploitable legal decision making processes being scoped and programmed.

The trajectory is likely to continue until a solicitor can, as a relative "non-specialist", achieve a significant portion of what specialists achieve within that part of their specialism that they regard as ordinary or mundane.

As a profession we will adapt, but there are going to be casualties.

What I find odd is that the assumption is that the young and IT literate will be on the butcher's list.

I'd say the cohort most at risk are those who have 10 to 20 years before retirement and haven't settled their power and status in their firms. The ones above will block progress in favour of their own greed and fear until the ones below assert themselves by changing the market so much that their traditional career path dissolves.

Those in-betweeners who could not keep up with the AI generation and who did not get their noses in the trough with the pre-internet generation will be wiped out.

Perhaps survey them, or are they already seen as irrelevant to the debate?