There Will Still Be Business Enough

March 2023. Legalweek. New York City. I'm in a room full of lawyers talking about "AI" like it's a productivity hack—interesting, but distant. Then Attorney Aaron Crews, a partner at Holland & Knight, cuts through the noise with one sentence I haven't been able to shake since: "Those who adopt this technology will be very far ahead, very quickly, and very, very, hard to catch."¹

That hit me because it put a timeline on something our profession prefers to keep theoretical. A few months earlier, I had learned that GPT-3.5 could perform at something like bar-exam level—but near the bottom of the distribution, roughly the 10th percentile.² Impressive for software. Easy for lawyers to dismiss as "cute."

Then I flew back to Cleveland and the curve bent—hard. GPT-4 arrived and jumped to the other end of the bell curve: around the 90th percentile, and it reportedly completed the exam in about six minutes—a test that typically takes humans roughly twelve hours.²

That is not "progress." That is an exponential, cognitive world—and it forces a hard question on every practicing attorney:

Before we debate whether AI "threatens" the profession, we need to face a more sobering reality: A vast portion of America is already living in a world without lawyers.

The Legal Services Corporation's 2022 Justice Gap report says it plainly: "Low-income Americans do not get any or enough legal help for 92% of their substantial civil legal problems."³

Let that sit for a second. Civil legal problems aren't "nice-to-have" inconveniences. They're evictions. Benefit denials. Unsafe housing. Consumer debt. Healthcare access. Family instability. The issues that determine whether a person has a home, safety, income, and stability.

And when people do reach out to legal aid, the capacity simply isn't there. The Justice Gap report estimates that over the course of a year, low-income individuals approach LSC-funded organizations with about 1.9 million eligible problems.⁵ They receive some legal help for 51%, but even then, they receive enough help to resolve the problem only 56% of the time.⁵ The report further notes that LSC-funded organizations are unable to provide any or enough help for 71% of problems brought to them—about 1.4 million problems annually.⁵

This is not a "marketing opportunity." It's a moral problem. It's also a systems problem. Because when millions of people can't access legal help, what they really lose is not just a case—they lose trust.

The report found that only 28% of low-income Americans agree with the statement: "People like me are treated fairly in the civil legal system."⁶ That's not cynicism. That's lived experience speaking.

Lawyers sometimes talk about the unserved public like it's an abstract "access to justice" topic. But the unserved market is people.

The ABA has reported that 80% of civil legal needs of low- and middle-income individuals go unmet.⁸ Another analysis notes that many people handle problems alone, do nothing, or seek help from someone who isn't a lawyer.⁸

And that creates a second uncomfortable truth: People will solve their problems—with or without us.

They'll solve them with Google, TikTok, Reddit, a friend who "knows a guy," or a chatbot. Sometimes they'll solve them poorly. Sometimes they'll lose rights they didn't know they had. Sometimes they'll get hurt.

But they will act. Which means the real question is not whether the public will DIY law. It's whether lawyers will build the guardrails, tools, and pathways that make self-help safer, more accurate, and more humane. That is where technology—especially AI—becomes an opportunity to do what lawyers have always done: help people solve their biggest problems.

Let's be honest about our profession. Lawyers are trained to be hyper-aware of risk. We are taught to see what can go wrong before anyone else sees it. That's not a character flaw—it's a professional asset. But it comes with a shadow side: We often have less practice with the upside of well-managed risk.

As Thomson Reuters put it, the legal profession is "inherently risk averse," built on precedent and caution.⁹ And when something new shows up—like AI—the default reflex is to ask:

• What are the ethics risks?
• What are the malpractice risks?
• What are the confidentiality risks?
• What are the "unknown unknowns"?

Those are good questions. But if those are the only questions we ask, we commit a quiet professional error: we ignore the risk of not changing. And in an exponential world, the cost of delay compounds.

"AI will not replace lawyers, but those lawyers who use AI will replace those who do not."

That's not hype. That's basic competitive reality. But the deeper reason to change isn't competition. It's mission.

We need a reframe. Lawyers are not merely "service providers." We are not just document factories. We are not just courtroom weapons. We are professional guides.

In a world where most people can't afford full representation, and legal aid can't meet demand, the future of legal service is not "lawyers vs. self-help." It's lawyer-guided self-help. It's unbundling. It's limited-scope representation. It's "first mile" triage: a smart, ethical way to help people understand whether they have a legal issue and what to do next.

And here's where AI changes the game. AI can help us build:

• Better intake systems that identify the real legal issue faster.
• Plain-language explanations of rights and options.
• Decision trees and guided workflows.
• Draft forms and letters that clients can use with oversight.
• Issue spotters that help a lawyer quickly see what matters.
• Scaled education that empowers communities.

Used well, AI does not reduce the lawyer's role. It expands it—because it extends our reach into the 77% of legal need that isn't being served.¹¹

Legal aid organizations—under-resourced but mission-driven—have recognized this quickly. A survey summarized by Robert Ambrogi reported that 74% of legal aid organizations are already using AI, roughly twice the adoption rate of the broader legal profession.¹² That should humble us. Legal aid is showing the profession what urgency looks like.

"The innovation capacity of legal aid… [is] driven by scarcity… [and] creativity."

And in that same discussion, Jennifer Zelnick warned that the justice gap could grow exponentially with AI if the public-serving legal ecosystem falls behind.¹⁴ That is the nightmare scenario: AI becomes an advantage available only to the well-resourced, and the poor fall further behind.

But there is a better scenario—if we lead.

The AI Advantage report (Everlaw/NLADA/Paladin/LawSites) found that 90% of surveyed legal aid professionals believed that fully using AI would enable them to serve more clients.¹⁵ This isn't wishful thinking; it's capacity mathematics.

"Generative AI offers a rare chance to address this crisis."

Here's the part the doomsayers get wrong:

AI can generate words. It can summarize cases. It can draft.

But it cannot do the real work of law:

• Accountable judgment.
• Ethical constraint.
• Strategic choice under uncertainty.
• Human trust and reassurance.
• Advocacy when someone's life is falling apart.
• The courage to say "this is wrong" and fight.

And law itself is not optional. Law is the operating system of our society.¹⁶ Every contract. Every employment relationship. Every property right. Every regulation. Every government program. Every business. Every family dispute.

So when the "operating system" is changing quickly—because technology is changing quickly—the world needs lawyers who can understand the change and craft the future.

In an AI-driven world, our role expands into new responsibilities:

• Shaping AI governance.
• Drafting standards for accountability and transparency.
• Protecting privacy and due process.
• Designing lawful, ethical automation.
• Preventing algorithmic harm.
• Building public trust in systems that will increasingly use AI.

The profession doesn't shrink in a world like that. The profession becomes more necessary—if we choose to lead.

Now we have to talk about the elephant in the room. AI can hallucinate. AI can fabricate. AI can be confidently wrong. And courts are not playing games with that.

In Mata v. Avianca, Inc., lawyers filed a brief with fake AI-generated citations, and the court sanctioned them.¹⁷ Judge P. Kevin Castel made a point every lawyer should tattoo on their brain: "There is nothing inherently improper about using… artificial intelligence… But… rules impose a gatekeeping role on attorneys."¹⁷

That's the center of gravity: not fear of the tool—responsibility for the output.

Canada saw similar fallout. In commentary on cases involving fabricated AI citations, lawyer Fraser MacLean put it bluntly: "The problem isn't that AI was used… [it's that] lawyers submitted citations… completely fabricated."¹⁸

And the warning has only grown louder. A California appellate court reportedly sanctioned an attorney for AI-fabricated quotes, emphasizing: "No… filing… should contain any citations… the attorney… has not personally read and verified."¹⁹

These aren't anti-technology rulings. They are pro-lawyer-accountability rulings. They confirm what we already know: our licenses are not delegable. Our judgment is not outsourceable. Our duty of candor doesn't get handed to a chatbot.

So if you're worried about AI risk, you are not wrong. You're just incomplete. Because the right response isn't retreat. The right response is a professional framework that makes safe adoption possible.

If you want to begin safely integrating AI into your firm—without putting your clients, your license, or your reputation at risk—start here:

This is how lawyers become informed risk-takers: not reckless, not paralyzed—competent, ethical, and brave.

If the exponential world feels overwhelming, here's the truth: You don't need to "transform your firm" overnight. You need to start.

This is how you build an AI-enabled firm that is faster, safer, and more impactful—without becoming a headline.

Here's what I believe:

We are living through a once-in-a-generation shift—like the industrial revolution, but faster and more cognitive. The skill we sell is not typing. It's judgment, strategy, ethics, and advocacy. But the way we deliver that value must evolve.

If we don't lead, others will define the future of legal service without us—tech companies, unregulated tools, half-accurate chatbots, and systems that leave ordinary people to gamble with their rights. And we don't get to complain about that future if we refused to build a better one.

"There will still be business enough."

He was right then. And he's right now.

There is work enough.

There is need enough.

There is purpose enough.

The only question is whether we will step forward.

Let's rock this. Let's change the world.