The Second To Last Generation?

The Profession You Are Entering Is Changing

Each spring, a new class of lawyers graduate into a profession that, until very recently, changed slowly enough that one could spend an entire career mastering its rhythms. That is no longer true. During my tenure the law changed quantitively, more than qualitatively—firms become global and more corporate and inhouse offices became more like big firms. That is over. The change you are entering is qualitative—the profession you are entering will not exist in its current form by the time you fully learn what is all about.

That is not a warning. It is an invitation.

First, the disclaimer before the evite. You all may be the second to last generation of lawyers—or at least lawyers as we know them today. If a generation of lawyers is the seven to ten years it takes to make partner, you can imagine a world where AI has changed things, but the big firms, big in-house corporate departments, and public law entities are all still remotely recognizable. However, if you think of how AI has changed the profession in the past one year and then imagine a world fourteen to twenty years from now, it is hard to imagine the current structures that define most law will still exist. There may be one more generation of lawyers after you, but it seems unlikely that many will end up in leadership, let alone “owners” or “partners” of organizations that look like those that exist today.

If some sort of “law” is becoming constant, easily available and nearly free, and where businesspeople can get “good enough” answers to their questions instantly, then the second to last generation of lawyers must position yourself differently to be of value.

If I were speaking to my younger self—sitting at the beginning of a career that could have followed a relatively predictable path if that was what I wanted—I would not simply offer reassurance about adapting to artificial intelligence. I would offer a more fundamental piece of advice: do not anchor yourself to a system that is already in the process of being redesigned or that anchor could pull you under with many of the institutions that choose not to evolve. If the law firm, the corporation, the government agency is not changing, abandon ship.

But because today’s institutions have many challenges, this transformation may be good not only for society, but for you, if you keep the following invitations in mind.

Do Not Build Your Identity Around Tasks

Here is something you will hear from a lot of people: the first mistake young lawyers can make today is to define themselves by the tasks they perform. For generations, the profession rewarded mastery of research, drafting, and the accumulation of legal knowledge. That was the guild. That was the moat that lawyers and their firms built around themselves. It was also the economic engine of the business of law.

AI is filling in that moat. Research is becoming instantaneous. Drafting is becoming automated. Knowledge is no longer the product of work. If you build your identity around those functions, you are building on ground that is already shifting beneath you.

Judgment Is the New Core Skill

Judgment was never simply knowing what the law says, but understanding what matters, what risks are real, what trade-offs are acceptable, and what outcome a client is trying to achieve. It is the ability to see not just the legal answer, but the practical consequence of that answer in the real world.

It requires emotional intelligence rather than something that you can write in a blue book or recite in answer to a question in class. AI can generate those answers, and most cases can do what you’ve just done— graduate from law school. AI can offer patterns, draft language, and even simulate reasoning. What it cannot do is own consequences. It cannot sit across from a client and absorb the weight of a decision that may affect a company, a career, or a life.

Learn How Law Actually Works Inside a Business

To develop that kind of judgment, you must move closer to how law actually operates inside a business. Law is not an abstract system; it is embedded in decisions about pricing, hiring, strategy, and risk. The young lawyer who understands doctrine but not business will always be replaceable. The one who understands how a general counsel thinks—how legal cost, risk, and timing translate into business outcomes—moves to where real influence resides.

A simple discipline can accelerate that shift. Every time you work on a matter, ask yourself what it means economically for the client. If this costs them one dollar, what does it imply for their business? How many dollars does the company have to make to be able to spend one dollar on what you do? What decisions does what you do enable, delay, or prevent? Those questions, asked consistently, will separate you from most of your peers.

Over time, it will also change how you see the law itself—not as a set of rules to be applied, but as a system that shapes and constrains real-world outcomes.

Become Fluent in AI—But Do Not Confuse Fluency with Value

None of this diminishes the importance of learning to use AI. You should become deeply fluent. Learn how to prompt effectively, how to structure outputs, how to test and validate results. Treat it as a new language, but not one that you just need to learn, but one that you have to teach the machine you are interacting with to learn.

But do not confuse fluency with value. AI literacy will quickly become like the ability to tie your shoes. The differentiator is not your ability to make a knot; it is your ability to know what to ask, when to trust the answer, and when to override the need to tie anything together. That requires context, experience, and judgment—precisely the capabilities the profession must now elevate.

Move from Inputs to Outcomes

As AI reduces the cost of producing legal work, the economic model that rewarded time and effort begins to erode. The billable hour, long criticized but deeply entrenched, is not disappearing because it was flawed. It is disappearing because the underlying economics are changing. When the marginal cost of producing legal output approaches zero, selling time becomes increasingly disconnected from value. Effort is no longer a reliable proxy for importance or impact.

Young lawyers should orient themselves accordingly. Do not think of your role as selling inputs. Think of your role as contributing to outcomes. Did the deal close? Was the risk mitigated? Did the dispute resolve in a way that advanced the client’s objectives? How do you share risk with your client? How do you help them reach their goals, regardless of the skill set they think you have but rather, with all the skills you actually have?

Relationships Are an Economic Asset

This shift also changes the importance of relationships. In a world where technical production is increasingly commoditized, trust becomes a primary asset. Your ability to listen, to communicate clearly, and to understand what is not being said will matter earlier in your career than it did for prior generations.

In the past relationships were important because they led to origination. While that economic reality will not change, relationships are not a soft skill layered on top of technical work. They are not just a personal or marketing distinction, but an economic differentiator in a system where the technical layer is flattening. Clients will have access to more information, more tools, and more options than ever before. What they will still need is someone they trust to help them navigate choices that are not purely technical.

Your Career Path Will Not Be Linear

You should also expect the structure of the profession to change around you. The traditional path—from associate to partner within a single firm—was built for a different era. AI is undercutting economic hierarchies and enabling new models: platforms, managed services organizations, virtual firms, and hybrid structures that would have seemed improbable a decade ago.

Do not anchor your identity to any one of those structures. Anchor it to your ability to create value across them. Careers will be less linear, but they may also be more dynamic and, for those who adapt, more interesting. If you can solve problems, build trust, and deliver outcomes, the platform you sit on becomes secondary.

Integrity Matters More Than Efficiency

There is one final caution. AI will make it easier to produce work quickly. It will also make it easier to lose sight of what you are responsible for. Faster answers, cleaner drafts, more output with less effort—these are all real advantages, but they carry a hidden risk.

Speed is not a substitute for accountability. If you do not fully understand or stand behind the work you deliver, you are eroding the trust that underpins the profession. Clients do not hire lawyers simply for efficiency. They hire them for judgment under uncertainty.

Your integrity—your willingness to own the outcome—remains your most important asset.

Build the New System, Do Not Defend the Old One

In the end, the most important thing I would tell my younger self is simple: do not try to become the best lawyer in the old system. That system is already giving way. Instead, focus on becoming indispensable in the one that is emerging—a system where law is instantaneous, continuous, and embedded in the fabric of decision-making itself.

For most of history, access to law was limited, controlled, and expensive. That scarcity defined the profession. As AI removes that scarcity, the role of the lawyer does not disappear, but it does change. The opportunity is not to defend what is being lost. It is to help build what comes next.

The Second to Last Generation

We’ve passed the era where first, Shakespeare wanted to kill all the lawyers, then through the era where the CFO wanted to kill all the lawyers. Now, agentic AI may simply ignore all the lawyers and change our future through benign neglect.

But I am betting on you, recent law school grad. Creativity exists in all of us, as does the courage to face new challenges. The particularly human trait of combining creativity and courage changes the future. Go grab it because it is yours.