Nalinda Indatissa, President’s Counsel.
The legal profession is at a pivotal moment. Artificial intelligence, digital platforms, and global connectivity are transforming how lawyers work, how cases are handled, and how clients interact with the law. The question is no longer whether AI will reshape the profession, but how lawyers can thrive alongside it.
Insights from leaders like Marco Argenti, Chief Information Officer at Goldman Sachs, remind us that in the AI era, human judgment, purpose, and wisdom matter more than ever. AI can draft documents, summarize vast amounts of data, or analyze contracts, but it cannot replace strategic thinking, ethical reasoning, or nuanced advocacy. These require human judgment, experience, empathy, and a deep understanding of context.
Lawyers who embrace AI will gain a powerful assistant. Research tools, drafting systems, and contract-analysis platforms can save significant time and cost, allowing lawyers to shift their attention to legal strategy, negotiation, advocacy, and client counseling. AI becomes a force multiplier when used thoughtfully, enabling lawyers to do more — not to do less. At the same time, clients increasingly pay for insight rather than mere information. They expect foresight, discernment, and ethical reasoning. Navigating complex disputes, anticipating risk, and balancing competing interests demand qualities that no machine can truly replicate. Curiosity becomes essential as well, because technology, law, and regulation are evolving rapidly, and lawyers who continually learn about digital evidence, cybersecurity, emerging technologies, and regulatory change position themselves to remain relevant and effective.
Artificial intelligence is also forcing lawyers and courts to rethink the foundations of intellectual property law. Technical inventions created with the help of AI raise challenging questions about ownership. When AI systems assist in designing new technologies, medicines, chemical compounds, or engineering solutions, who owns the patent — the researcher, the institution, the company using the AI, or the developer of the AI tool? Creative work generated by AI brings similar uncertainty. Artworks, drawings, books, photographs, and music can now be generated or significantly shaped by machines. Who owns the copyright — the programmer, the user, the platform, or perhaps no one at all?
Even trade marks face pressure in an automated, digital, global economy. AI can generate brand names, logos, and slogans instantly — and it can also imitate or manipulate existing ones at scale. Protecting brand identity and resolving disputes across borders has become increasingly complicated. In many jurisdictions, existing laws only partially address these developments. Some countries attempt to stretch old concepts to new realities, while others are cautiously drafting new approaches. Much, however, remains unresolved, and this uncertainty creates opportunity. Lawyers who understand AI will be needed to draft contracts and licensing agreements, advise on authorship and ownership, design regulatory frameworks, counsel governments and companies, and litigate emerging disputes. Rather than reducing work, AI is opening entire new legal frontiers.
Beyond intellectual property, AI is rapidly transforming criminal justice and investigation. It is already being used to prevent and detect crime, identify criminal activity, and uncover fraud in public and private institutions, including banks and financial services. Investigations increasingly rely on AI-driven data collection, pattern recognition, and complex analytics. In some jurisdictions, AI tools are being used to help identify suspected perpetrators, through technologies such as facial recognition, behavioural analytics, and predictive monitoring. When these results eventually come before court, they fundamentally alter traditional identification methods, which historically relied on eyewitness testimony and manual investigative processes. Such technological change must be introduced carefully, protecting fairness, privacy, accuracy, due process, and the rights of the accused.
Even where AI uncovers more wrongdoing than human investigators could manage alone, the resulting material still has to be presented in a legally admissible and reliable form. As AI detects more incidents, more matters will inevitably reach the courts. Lawyers who understand AI will therefore be central in developing new evidentiary rules and ensuring that AI-generated material is transparent, verifiable, and trustworthy.
Similar developments are visible in financial crime. AI systems now monitor transactions, identify suspicious movement of funds, and help authorities uncover money laundering, fraud, and illicit flows. Banks and regulators are increasingly dependent on automated monitoring, yet courts still require rigorous standards of reliability, accuracy, and chain of custody. Because the legal framework must evolve alongside these technologies, opportunities are expanding for lawyers who can navigate both compliance and technology, advise institutions, draft regulations, litigate complex disputes, and protect the rights of individuals affected by automated decision-making.
AI is also moving deeply into medicine, robotics, transportation, and public safety. Robotic surgery, automated diagnostics, AI-based treatment recommendations, and self-driving vehicles all raise complex questions of liability and ethics. If surgery performed by an AI-assisted robotic system goes wrong, who is negligent — the doctor, the manufacturer, the hospital, or the developer? If AI gives medical advice that leads to harm, where does legal responsibility fall? And when autonomous vehicles cause accidents, how should responsibility be divided between drivers, software developers, and producers? In most legal systems, existing laws only partially address such questions, meaning much of the future framework still has to be built — and lawyers will play a leading role in building it.
To thrive in this rapidly changing world, lawyers must think systemically. They need to understand not only the law itself, but also how courts, technology companies, regulators, and governments interact. Resilience, curiosity, and adaptability are becoming as important as technical knowledge. Leadership grounded in integrity, accountability, and humane judgment will shape how societies integrate AI into everyday life. And although technology accelerates legal work, lawyers must remain human — protecting their own well-being, maintaining ethics, and cultivating trust in their communities and families.
AI does not diminish the importance of lawyers; it magnifies it. Those who harness AI wisely, cultivate judgment, remain curious, and think systemically will thrive. At the intersection of law and technology, it is still human qualities — discernment, empathy, leadership, and wisdom — that remain irreplaceable. The future belongs to lawyers prepared to grow with it.
