Does The Iceman Cometh For Thee? (Spoiler Alert: Not If You Take Action Now)
Lacie Marshall
Empowering Legal Careers Through Strategic Placements | Founder of Onward Recruiting | Transforming the Legal Landscape One Opportunity at a Time
I love plays. There. I said it. There is nothing quite like sitting in the audience of a theater and watching skilled actors take you to another world without all the bells and whistles of technology. I have never seen the play The Iceman Cometh in person, but I was thinking about it recently.
It is considered one of America’s great plays but it is not for the faint of heart. It is a brutal story about a group of alcoholics who place their faith in the wrong person. I don’t want to spoil the ending for you if you haven’t seen it on stage or film but let us just say that the play's conclusion is not emotionally uplifting. The most common comment of theater goers afterwards is “I need a glass of wine stat!” Ok, I made that up but I would be surprised if that was not true.
The profession of the ‘iceman’ refers to the men who used to deliver blocks of frozen water for people to put in their iceboxes. Once electricity became widespread, the delivery men were replaced by the refrigerator..
In the play, the iceman represents death so it is interesting that in real life the profession was killed off by technology. Some people are predicting the same fate for the legal field, with Chat-GPT4 recently passing the Uniform Bar Exam by scoring in the 90th percentile. Is the AI Iceman coming for your legal job? It depends.
The Law Is Not A Monolith
The good news is that the law is not a monolith. Its huge diversity of opportunities make it unlikely that the profession as a whole is going to be replaced by artificial intelligence anytime soon. There are just too many variables in play. The bad news is that AI is yet another non-legal 3rd party that is competing for legal dollars.
Online platforms like LegalZoom, the proliferation of contract workers, and document preparers have already started taking away market share from traditional firms. I have talked previously about positioning yourself as a niche of one in order to stand out amongst your peers to be able to compete in this environment.
That said, it is important to understand that just like the iceman there will be entire sectors of the legal field that will cease to exist. It will start with those firms that ignore what is happening and think that AI is somehow inapplicable or too immature of a technology to impact the legal field. This is a mistake.
The Robots Are Coming! (For Some Of Us)
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People may be tempted to say “big deal” or “this will eventually impact retail jobs”. I understand why they would think that but they are failing to grasp how quickly things are changing. Folding a shirt is actually a pretty complicated task. Practically every other physical action can be extrapolated from what is required to fold a shirt. This means that it is only a matter of time before warehouse jobs are completely replaced by robots (Hint: it is already happening).
The same is true on the intellectual side of things. ChatGPT 4 passing the bar is the white collar version of this robot folding a shirt. Big things always start small. Everything is normal, until robots are selling shirts at Anne Taylor.
It Is Not Enough To Embrace AI
I don’t think it should be difficult to persuade you to learn everything you can about how artificial intelligence and large language models work. Then the best way to inoculate yourself from the disruption of the technology is to get ahead of it in the legal sector. What do I mean by this? After you position yourself as a niche of one and familiarize yourself with the tech, you have to take the next step of becoming a leader for the profession.
There has never been a larger leadership gap in the legal field than there is at the moment. The tech is simply moving too fast for lawyers stuck in the old model to adapt. The historical paradigm of going to law school, working at a firm, and then becoming a partner is no longer valid for long term success on its own. There will simply be too much disruption to that model going forward.
The attorneys that are able to bridge the gap between the old way of doing things and the new marketplace will be highly sought after. The sooner lawyers can embrace this new reality, the sooner they will be able to take advantage of the incredible new opportunities that await those who are willing to think differently. But be warned, those who refuse to adopt will go the way of the iceman. (That got out of hand quickly!)
Have a great rest of your week!
Now What?
The biggest misconception people have about what I do is that they think they have to “be looking” to make a change before they talk to me. Just like becoming clear on your goals is a process, so is evaluating where you are in your career right now. It takes time to figure out if you even want to make some type of move, let alone what that would look like.
No matter when you are thinking about making a change, it is never too early to start a dialogue. The process can take longer than you think. A quick chat gets you on my radar, so let's talk! Find time on my calendar to chat.
Lacie