"When Nelivigi, now a partner in New York at the global firm White & Case, began his career with a freshly minted Harvard Law degree, he recalls that his duties included taking notes at client meetings. These were learning sessions, as he carefully observed the senior associates and partners plying their skills. And for young lawyers involved in litigation, there was also extensive document-based research."
"Through the decades, some of that first-year legal work has been automated. But now generative AI and AI agents - apps that can perform carefully tailored tasks autonomously - have accelerated the process and brought a new level of efficiency. That raises big questions about what a first-year lawyer can do that AI can't. Or, for that matter, what the role should be for entry-level people in various other knowledge-based professions, like tax and accounting."
"It's possible, therefore, that a first-year associate at an AI-enabled law or accounting firm may be able to more quickly perform the tasks once handled by someone with a few years of professional experience. Of course, it will still be crucial that these professionals acquire the full set of human wisdom and expertise that will prepare them to be the leaders of their firms 15 or 20 years down the road."
A 30-year corporate law career shows automation has steadily shifted first-year associate tasks from note-taking and document research to more advanced work. Generative AI and AI agents now accelerate that shift, increasing efficiency and prompting questions about what entry-level professionals can uniquely contribute. Automation enables firms to redeploy talent toward client strategy and consulting while expecting junior staff to validate AI outputs and catch errors. Entry-level employees at AI-enabled firms may perform traditionally senior tasks earlier, but they still must acquire deep human judgment and expertise to lead firms in future decades.
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