Anne Trimmer AO, former President of the Law Council of Australia, delivered the 37th Annual Sir Richard Blackburn Lecture during Law Week on 21 May 2024.
The 2024 Annual Blackburn Lecture examines the growth and spread of generative artificial intelligence technologies across society, as well as their increasing influence on both the profession and within the courts.
Introduction
I am delighted to be with you today on the occasion of the 2024 Blackburn Lecture. With an open-ended topic in mind, I have chosen to examine the potential impact on legal practice of the ever-expanding world of artificial intelligence and ask the question: Do lawyers have a future in a world founded on artificial intelligence?
Justice Allsop summarised well the current state of play: ‘To a degree, the future must remain unknown. Artificial intelligence and its effect on courts, the profession and the law will change the landscape of life in ways we cannot predict.’
I begin with two disclosures – this lecture has not been generated by ChatGPT (although I am sure ChatGPT could make a reasonable fist of it, given relevant parameters). Secondly, I am not an expert in artificial intelligence.
However, I do have a long-held interest in how law is practised and in the dynamics of legal practice as a profession. As we approach the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, the interest in artificial intelligence and its application to the practice of law stands to fundamentally change the nature of legal practice, for better or for worse.
In this 2024 Blackburn lecture, I examine the impact that AI is already having on the legal profession and question how, as a profession, lawyers can preserve the integrity of legal practice, including the ethical boundaries of the profession. I also examine what opportunities might exist to enable greater democratisation of legal practice through the use of artificial intelligence.
When Sir Richard Blackburn delivered the first Blackburn lecture in 1986, we could not envision the changes that technology would introduce into legal practice. In the 1980s, the first word processors arrived in legal offices with word processing pools replacing typing pools. Internal communications were delivered in envelopes, and long-distance transmission of documents was by telex until the introduction of the fax machine. And if this sounds like another era, it was my experience in my first year in practice.
The Economist, in a recent opinion piece, commented that previous technological breakthroughs revolutionised what people did in offices. It quotes an observer of the typewriter’s spread in 1888: ‘With the aid of this little machine, an operator can accommodate more correspondence in a day than half a dozen clerks can with the pen and do better work.’ The introduction of the computer a century later eliminated some low-level administrative tasks while making skilled workers more productive. It was not until the 1990s that networked computers became more widely available, and with them, the introduction of email and external electronic communication.
In late 1998, representatives of the Sections of the Law Council of Australia recommended that the Law Council undertake a long-term strategic planning exercise for the legal profession.
As a result of this suggestion, the Law Council established a Taskforce under my chairmanship as the then President-elect. The Taskforce was tasked with examining some of the significant issues likely to impact the legal profession in the first decade of the 21st century.
The subsequent Discussion Paper was released in September 2001, during my presidency. I urged that the Discussion Paper be used as a tool to generate debate within the profession and the community about the role of lawyers and the implications arising from some of the issues identified. In rereading the paper in preparation for this lecture, I was struck by how much remains pertinent, a quarter of a century on.
The Discussion Paper notes that one of the challenges in envisioning the future of the legal profession is the ‘paradox of change’. The introduction makes the point that ‘[w]hile the profession needs to address and come to terms with all the issues that arise from the forces of deregulation, competition, globalisation and technology, there is equally a need on the other side of the policy equation to emphasise the core values of the legal profession’.
This paradox persists as we enter a technology-driven age aided by artificial intelligence. The paradox is that the benefit of efficiency is brought about by AI’s capacity to trawl through large amounts of data and provide analysis and images in a short time. However, on the other side lies the danger of relying on an interface that nonetheless requires human input to ensure it is accurate and consistent with the law. What is the role of the lawyer within this paradox?
Two American lawyers who have written extensively on AI in legal practice, Natalie Pierce and Stephanie Goutas, argue that ‘the evolution ahead calls for a thoughtful and strategic approach, centred on embracing new technologies, modernising legal education, and providing the necessary training. This strategy is designed to equip legal professionals with the requisite skills needed to collaborate effectively with sophisticated AI systems, underscoring the importance of adaptability and continuous learning. Our goal should not be to ban or eliminate GenAI from the legal industry, but instead to skillfully train legal professionals. Hence, they understand how to leverage the technology responsibly to enhance their unique skills and, in turn, their practice of law.
To this, our legal professional bodies, charged with regulating the profession, consider whether the current conduct rules are sufficiently flexible to apply to legal work undertaken in an AI context. As I have pointed out, some thoughtful preliminary guidance is already available from different professional bodies.
In answer to the question, Do lawyers have a future, the answer to my mind is definitely ‘yes’. While AI may spare lawyers time in trawling large volumes of material, the lawyer brings judgment, empathy, reasoning, and strategy.
There are, however, challenges in the way we educate and train our early-career lawyers. Their efforts need to be valued, not devalued.
And finally, the use of AI to assist and support citizens who otherwise lack access to legal services is a key reason to support the further evolution of AI in legal practice.
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