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Taking the Lawyers Out of the Loop
An Associated Press story carried by the Christian Science Monitor suggests that expert systems can already replace lawyers in a great many disputes (especially low-level ones, where the disputants don't need or don't want to see each other), and the realm of legal expertise that can be embodied in silicon will only grow. The article spends most of its time on Modria, a company whose software is being used in Ohio to "resolve disputes over tax assessments and keep them out of court, and a New York-based arbitration association has deployed it to settle medical claims arising from certain types of car crashes," but mentions a few others as well. Modria's software has also been used to negotiate hundreds of divorces in the Netherlands, including ones with areas of dispute: "If they reach a resolution, they can print up divorce papers that are then reviewed by an attorney to make sure neither side is giving away too much before they are filed in court."
But then the lawyers could just lower their prices to compete. Could actually make prices come down over a long enough time.
Personally, I think that we waste a lot of time and money paying professionals to do things that could much easier be accomplished by those who specialize in a very small task. I probably don't need an actual MD to tell me that my kid has an ear infection. It's probably a pretty simple diagnosis. Why not let somebody without an MD prescribe a limited number of medications?
I'm sure people hire lawyers for lots of things that are actually quite simple to somebody who focuses on the rules. You probably don't need a law degree to understand the law in a very limited field.
Some places are starting to catch on. I can get me teeth cleaned by a dental hygienist who owns their own office, no dentist is involved. I can get my flu shot at the pharmacy, no doctor involved. Hopefully someday we won't have to see a doctor to get a cast on a broken limb. You'll just go to somebody who specializes in diagnosing broken bones and getting them fixed, instead of waiting in a doctors office with lots of people with infectious diseases.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
This made me think: maybe laws should explicitly be written to facilitate dispute resolution by algorithm. Not only would it speed the process, but presumably apps could be written to tell you before you act in the first place whether there might be problems.
I actually feel bad for lawyers/law students. Yes, yes, cue the lawyer jokes, but what's happening to law is a perfect example of what's coming for basically all white collar work in the future. Hopefully I'll be retired or dead before it fully takes over. It's also a preview of what's happening in IT, accelerated significantly, so it should be taken as a cautionary tale.
It used to be that even doing an OK job in law school and passing the bar was an absolutely guaranteed ticket to permanent employment at the very least, and firm partner/country club lifestyle at the top end. From what I've read, the American Bar Association has done exactly what is being done in IT in the last 20 years:
- Increased the supply of new grads by accrediting more and more law schools.
- Decreased the equilibrium price of legal services by allowing offshoring of routine tasks as well as expert systems like the article is talking about. Apparently you needed to pay a full lawyer salary previously to have case documents reviewed for discovery, etc. Now new law grads are doing this job for Starbucks wages.
- Encouraging more and more people to get into the lucrative field of law, failing to mention the lack of opportunities.
Sound familiar? Tech executives complaining about a labor shortage fund extra educational programs, they offshore work, and they have the H1-B to fall back on.
Apparently, there are still insanely lucrative law jobs out there. Big corporate firms start their associates at $160K a year in New York, plus bonus. If you stay on that track, you will never want for money again -- you'll be well into the luxury lifestyle forever. BUT - there's a catch. You have to go to one of the top 14 law schools in the country, preferably Harvard/Yale/Stanford, graduate in the very top of your class, and do activities like law review on top of all that. Otherwise, you might as well not even go to law school, because you'll never make back your investment. There are tons of pissed off law grads in this boat -- I would be too if I were told there would be guaranteed riches at the end of the rainbow and wasted 3 years of my life plus bar exam preparation time.
Right now, the only professions that are safe are medicine and pharmacy. Mostly this is due to a very strong lobbying group (AMA) and the regulations/licensure surrounding the profession. I think it's definitely time to license the engineering/design side of IT and make the operations side a trade with all the protections that entails. I know I'd be a lot more comfortable if new entrants into the IT field went through an actual apprenticeship as opposed to a Ruby on Rails coder bootcamp or MCSE certification mill. Plus, having the actual engineers/architects licensed would bring personal liability into the picture and result in higher quality work overall. Time for the profession to grow up and get out of Mom's basement, so to speak.