I reported earlier on the Jordan Furlong keynote at this year’s TECHSHOW and his belief that there will always be demand for the “human” lawyer who can provide sound advice, be the advocate for their clients through thick and thin, and who will walk through the valleys with them. But I wasn’t sure what to expect when the writer, podcaster, and personality, Nilay Patel took the stage on Friday afternoon for his keynote.

His conclusion about the future of lawyers, though, was remarkably similar to Furlong’s. He just took a different route to get there. In a somewhat disjointed but entertaining keynote, Patel told the audience that the real value lawyers bring to clients is something AI can’t bring: the ability to advise, listen, and guide them through ambiguity and lack of predictability.

Software May Remake the Legal Profession

Make no mistake, Patel, like Furlong before him, believes AI and the software that propels it will fundamentally remake the legal profession. Patel believes that the similarities between the creation of software and computer engineering make law a tempting target for disruption. Law and computer engineering both involve the use of structured language. Both are based on logic. Both depend heavily on past solutions and language to build future solutions. As a result, Patel says there are lots of similarities between law and computer coding.

Add to this the desperate get rich search by vendors and whiz kids to use AI to take over the world, which suggests that much of what lawyers do may be automated and AI replicated. What’s more, Patel touched on something I had not thought of: vibe coding (building software through plain-language AI prompts rather than traditional code) can make everyone a coder and an AI platform developer. Software that used to be out of the cost range of many businesses and, for that matter, law firms, is now affordable and obtainable by everyone.

The result is the belief that more and more legal work can be brought to heel in the brave new world of GenAI. That software can replace almost everything lawyers do.

But not so fast, says Patel.

Software Won’t Eat Legal

Before we all start vibe coding, Patel pointed out some fundamental differences between what lawyers do and what AI can provide. Law is built upon ambiguity, which software abhors. It’s deterministic: try two cases on the same set of facts and you could very well get two different results. And unlike software which is often buggy, makes mistakes, and is sometimes even shipped and sold without knowing for sure if it will work, lawyers have to get it right the first time. Every time. Glitches for lawyers are catastrophic. A lawyer can’t debug if they get it wrong.

Moreover, says Patel, despite its propensity to be buggy, software and AI is fairly predictable. Even the fact that it makes mistakes is predictable. But what lawyers face is just the opposite: a cranky, disagreeable judge. And the zenith of unpredictability: a jury. A jury that may be swayed by everything from what a client is wearing to unfathomable body language. To top it off, lawyers have adversaries who are searching for and waiting to pounce on any slight mistake or faux pas.

What does all this mean? Patel says why we have lawyers is just because of this fundamental ambiguity and unpredictability. Ambiguity and unpredictability that software and AI have great difficulty understanding and dealing with.

Yes, I know. The AI champions say just wait. AI will soon (if not already) be able to deal with ambiguity and factor in unpredictability. But Patel says there is something else to what good lawyers provide. A something more that is key to the future of lawyers. And it came from Patel’s wife.

The Lawyer Therapist

Patel’s wife is a family lawyer. He asked her one time if she was concerned that she could be replaced by a robot. Her response was, “I’m actually as much a therapist as I am a lawyer.” Meaning that people came to her with very personal and intimate problems. What they wanted was not just a recitation of the law. They wanted someone to listen to them. To let them vent. And then take their rage, their fear, and their desires and navigate all of that through a legal system that itself is ambiguous and unpredictable.

She’s right. Over the years, I learned that all clients want is to tell their side of the story. They want a lawyer who will listen to them and take their side. They need a lawyer to do all that and then tell them what can be done in a way that assures them their lawyer is squarely on their side. The lawyer then does just what Patel’s wife articulated: navigate a tricky legal venue.

And it’s not just true for family lawyers. I had partner whose legal skills other lawyers in the firm scoffed at. But Fred was one of the leading rainmakers in the firm. Why? He never told a client something could not be done. Instead, he looked for ways to accomplish some if not all of what he understood the client really wanted and needed. That’s why they came to him.

That was certainly true for me. Indeed, during the Q and A portion of Patel’s talk, an in-house corporate lawyer said the same thing.

Clients want answers and help from us, not a regurgitation of what the law forbids. Patel saw this. Furlong sees the same thing. Two bookends to the future of law.

It Ain’t Easy

But here’s the thing: it ain’t easy. Being the human lawyer that Furlong described and Patel talked about is hard to get right. And it’s going to get even harder as clients second guess their lawyer with GenAI tools.

But AI software can’t do this yet, and maybe not ever. The fact of the matter, says Patel, is that GenAI may talk and act like a human, but it neither is one nor sentient, despite what some AI proponents scream.

The bottom line: for all its unpredictability and frustrations, law is still a human business. A business based on human-to-human intersections and relationships. Interactions and relationships that are just as unpredictable and full of ambiguity as the law.

And that, says Patel (and Furlong), is why there will always be a need for the kind of lawyer that can give clients what they really need.

The Future of Lawyers: It’s Just One Thing

It’s a hopeful message. But Patel readily admits that software and AI will change the legal profession — and everything else, for that matter — in ways we can’t predict. But when asked what lawyers can do to prepare, he thought for a minute and gave an unexpected answer. He said sit down and think about all the tasks you do in a week. Then determine which of those tasks are repetitive. Those tasks will all ultimately be replaced by AI. The rest of what you do won’t. Get really good at those things.

Which brings us back to Furlong’s human lawyer. The irreplaceable skills of being not just someone skilled in the law (which has always been and always will be table stakes), but someone who can hold the client’s hand, who listens, who walks with them every step of the way, who has their back and interests at heart. Someone like my mentor who I talked about in my discussion of Furlong’s keynote: Joe knew his clients so well, he could pick out a book for them that he knew they would read.

What Furlong and Patel put their fingers on is exactly what set Joe and Fred apart. It’s what has always made good lawyers great. And it always will. And no amount of AI software will change it.

Furlong and Patel: two remarkable and hopeful bookends to an outstanding TECHSHOW.

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.

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