In a recent interview with the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession, leading legal scholar Richard Susskind said of AI in the legal industry, “It’s rational to be both excited and wary. It’s rational to be both optimistic and pessimistic.” In other words, it’s only human to see both sides of the AI coin.
Susskind wrote the seminal work on technology and the legal profession, The Future of Law: Reflections and Predictions, published in 1996; a 30th anniversary edition was released this year with new commentary alongside the original text, discussing how the predictions have fared and what the future of law now looks like from the vantage point of 2026.
Susskind considers the value of AI tools to help those with existing or potential legal problems to resolve them in ways that are less painful, less intrusive, and less expensive. Greater knowledge of the law could result in fewer disputes, “putting the fence at the top of the cliff rather than the ambulance at the bottom.” He also discusses the value of AI in preventive legal work, in which organizations use agents to roam their internal systems to identify early markers of legal problems.
Susskind has been quoted on AI empowering non-lawyers, organizations, and individuals to do their legal work without a lawyer (adr.org podcast, June 5, 2025). But he does add that AI is about making the law more accessible to non-lawyers and reducing their alienation from it.
So, will the rise of AI replace lawyers? It depends on how you use your lawyer. “AI is best used to help lawyers and clients better collaborate on what matters most – using human judgment to solve human problems,” says ES&A Director Sam Sneed. “AI can be a huge force multiplier to sort through facts, but it does not replace the attorney-client relationship. Think of it at best like a first-year associate born yesterday.”
If you are using agentic tools in your business operations, consult your attorney about its potential for legal risk management.
For more on AI legal issues for Hawaii employers, you can also watch the Hawaii episode of the ELA’s APAC Vlog Series here.