Stay on the streets of this town
And they’ll be carvin’ you up, alright
They say you gotta stay hungry
“Dancing in the Dark,” Bruce Springsteen, 1984
Years ago, our team was invited to take part in a “beauty contest” for a major, national piece of “bet the company” litigation. Our competition was all New York and Chicago Am Law 50 law firms. Here we were, a small player in a small venue far removed from where the case was filed. Yet we got the work.
After the litigation was successfully concluded, I asked the main client rep why we got picked. He shrugged and said, “Well, you know every firm we met with was competent. But if we had to be in a foxhole with someone for a few years, it might as well be with people we liked. Which was you guys.”
But this didn’t happen by accident. We cultivated that client for a long time before the litigation. We got to know them. We spent time with them. Our team leader made it a point to pick out a book for the client every year as a Christmas present. That took time and getting to know the client well enough to know what they would like and be interested in.
We were entrepreneurs: we worked on creating both trusted and collegial, well-liked relationships with our clients because that satisfied the needs they had.
I was thinking about that very client when I listened to Jordan Furlong’s remarkable opening keynote at ABA TECHSHOW.
The Jordan Furlong Keynote Thesis
According to Furlong, in the AI-driven future, the successful lawyers will be those who can supply sound advice to clients, who will be their advocate through thick and thin, and who will accompany them, being with them through every step of the matter. In short, being a “human lawyer” whose value is not in what they know but who they are and how they enhance value through their relationships.
In short, to be someone they like and trust in the foxhole, and to be the lawyer they know has their back, just like our client said. But this isn’t necessarily new; it’s what the most successful lawyers have always done. And always will do. The only difference is that in the future, the lawyers who don’t do this may find it tough sledding.
To understand Furlong’s thesis, it’s important to look at his analysis and then how we get young lawyers where they may need to be.
What Hath AI Wrought?
Furlong identified three long-term “gains” to the legal profession that AI will bring. First, legal services in the age of AI will be commoditized. It will no longer be enough to be able to “think like a lawyer” because that ability will be on every device. As a result, legal services will expand and cost decline.
Second, legal products and services will become mechanized. The amount of work a human lawyer can do will no longer limit what can be provided. AI will fill the gap. Again, more services can and will be delivered at lower costs.
The third “gain” identified by Furlong is the reconfiguration of law firms. According to Furlong, law firms “will become professional businesses that will also feature lawyers,” instead of being lawyer centered. This will help those who need service to get it faster and, again, at less cost.
But there is a catch, says Furlong. The “gains” will not necessarily inure to the lawyers of today. Instead, the benefits will go to those who need the services. And that scares lawyers to death.
Furlong believes GenAI will dramatically change the legal profession and move lawyers away from their traditional roles of being “task performers and overseers,” which is how so many perceive themselves. Instead, as pointed out above, the future lawyers will be the human lawyers who thrive on building and maintaining relationships.
Training the Next Generation of “Human” Lawyers
It’s tempting to say that this idea is not new. Afterall, it was a formula our team and I followed. But it does beg the question, says Furlong, of how we get the next generation of lawyers to become the kind of lawyers who are able to provide that kind of value. It’s a question I and others have been struggling with.
Traditional law firms supplied the training to young lawyers on how to be lawyers and serve clients. Furlong noted that firms were happy to provide that kind of training since they were able to bill the training time of the associates to clients and enhance profit. That, according to Furlong, is about to change as GenAI takes over more and more the tasks typically done by associates and by which they learned.
In the future, Furlong believes that training will need to be provided by first assembling a competence profile and defining what it means to be a good lawyer, a subject I have discussed. Secondly, firms will need to create a learning environment like that in teaching hospitals through more robust mentorships, an idea I have also mentioned.
Finally, the profession will need to provide a mechanism by which readiness can be assessed; performance standards that need to be met. Not a bar exam but real standards about what it means to serve clients.
I agree with Furlong on almost all of these points. But there is something more we need to teach young lawyers if we want them to be that kind of human lawyer Furlong envisions and clients want to be in a foxhole with. It’s the spirit of entrepreneurship that drove our team to form the kind of relationship with our client that got us big cases. It was the spirit that drove my partner to take the time to pick out special books as Christmas gifts every year.
When I meet with law students, the first thing I tell them about the successful practice of law is to think of yourself as an entrepreneur, no matter if you are going to practice as a solo or in an Am Law 100 firm. I didn’t become a mass tort defense lawyer by osmosis. I defined it as an area in which I wanted to practice and then became an entrepreneur to get there. I found a mentor in the area, sunk my fangs in his ankle, and hung on for dear life. I’m not sure he wanted the role, but I made damned sure he wasn’t getting out of it.
I saw how he cultivated clients. I saw how he won their trust. He was Furlong’s proverbial human lawyer. And by hard work and some good luck, I like to think I became one too.
How Do We Get There?
I agree we need to make more of the human lawyers. But I don’t think just saying that, defining what that is, setting standards, and assessing performance will get us there. What we first need to impart is the need to do what my mentor and our team did. To instill that spirit of entrepreneurship in young lawyers. Entrepreneurs who don’t become successful by mastering a subject but by seeing the needs of others and doggedly pursuing a solution to satisfy those needs.
I believe Furlong is absolutely right that the lawyers who will succeed in the future will be masters of relationships and cultivate trust and confidence. I believe this because that is exactly what has set the really successful lawyers apart from those that merely push paper and bill hours, at least throughout my career.
But that suggests a final reality. Not every lawyer had that desire and spirit in the past and, no matter how hard we try, not everyone will have it in the future. Like everything else, there will be those who get it and there will be those who either can’t or don’t.
But given that GenAI will inevitably mean less need for lawyers, it’s all the more reason to look at why clients have always trusted successful lawyers and wanted to work with them. It’s all the more reason to impart that need and skills to do so. And it all starts with cultivating the notion of entrepreneurship in our younger lawyers. The spirit of staying hungry.
Want to be a successful lawyer in the future? Listen to Jordan Furlong. And be an entrepreneur.
Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and writer. He publishes TechLaw Crossroads, a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law.
