Odd Lots · Monday, July 13, 2026
AI is unlikely to reduce the overall amount of legal work, but it will significantly change the profession, according to Gary Wingins, chair of Lowenstein Sandler. He notes that technological advancements in the past, like word processing and document automation, did not eliminate legal jobs but did alter how work is done and billed.
“I think actually, are they like paid by the ten minutes? Technically sometimes yeah, but it does feel like we're gods. So maybe, like I'm not saying, and I don't even have an intuition per se that a I would like upend, like a reduce the amount of legal work that needs to get done. But those technological revolutions that you mentioned in the past probably did change the industry quite a bit. So regardless of like total employment or job prospects, et cetera, it feels inevitable that change is going to come at one point.”
“I think it is a pretty huge change. So there are two ways it's changing. One is what you're talking about kind of the the process and systems and using AI to become more efficient, just like when you know, when Microsoft Word came out, came out and it was became much more efficient for you to kind of do your own documents or compare Right.”
“But the other way AI is working in law firms right now is it's it's acting as a thought partner, and it is making us better at our jobs and to use a term, acting as a co pilot for all of our lawyers in helping think through problems.”