Colin Lachance's The End of the Associate Bottleneck

A link to "The Future is Always Six Months Away: Anticipating the dawn of LLM agents in legal work"

In this post, I want to link to and liberally praise an excellent piece from Colin Lachance’s keynote at OBA TECHxpo, discussing the transformative potential of AI agents in legal work. Imagine a near future where tools like "LegalMind" replace much of the traditional back-and-forth between junior associates and senior partners. OpenAI unlocked its advanced voice mode for all paid users last week, and so Lachance’s piece is very timely.

Referencing Eric Schmidt's leaked forecast of AI advancements, Lachance contrasts today’s slow, iterative processes with a scenario where AI agents, using advanced reasoning and large context windows, collaborate with lawyers to produce more efficient, accurate work in real-time. He quite reasonably envisions agents based on advancements already made that not only assist but self-correct and iterate—offering insights, asking clarifying questions, and delivering polished drafts with minimal human oversight. This could revolutionize legal workflows, providing clients faster, more cost-effective service.

Read the full text for more on how AI agents may reshape the legal landscape: https://www.oba.org/JUST/Practice_List/2024/August-2024/The-Future-is-Always-Six-Months-Away-Anticipating