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Professionals · code 2611

Lawyers

Lawyers give clients legal advice on a wide variety of subjects, draw up legal documents, represent clients before administrative boards or tribunals and plead cases or conduct prosecutions in courts of justice, or instruct barristers to plead in higher courts of justice. Tasks include - (a) giving clients legal advice on a wide variety of subjects and undertaking legal business on clients’ behalf; (b) researching legal principles, statutes and previous court decisions related to specific cases; (c) gathering evidence to formulate a defence or to initiate legal actions, by such means as interviewing clients and witnesses to ascertain the facts of a case; (d) evaluating findings and developing strategies and arguments in preparation for presentation of cases; (e) pleading clients’ cases before courts of law, tribunals and administrative boards or instructing barristers to plead in higher courts of justice; (f) accepting briefs and pleading in the higher court; (g) acting as prosecutor on behalf of the government; (h) negotiating settlements in matters which involve legal disputes; (i) drafting legislation and preparing government regulations based on existing laws; (j) drawing up legal documents such as contracts, real estate transactions and wills and preparing statements of legal opinions. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Attorney - Barrister - Lawyer - Prosecutor - Solicitor Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Notary - 2619 - Conveyancing clerk - 3411 - Law clerk - 3411

A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't. It ranks 289 of 427 for holding up against AI.

Also known as

  • lawyer

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

63.7
Holds up
against AI Minimal Exposure

AI could take on 36.3 of 100, on average
so it holds up at 100 − 36.3 = 63.7

That's the whole sum, and you can check it against the ILO's study.

17.4
How hands-on
out of 100

From O*NET, matched to one US job

8.4
How fiddly
and cramped

finger skill 16 · hand skill 1.7 · cramped spaces 7.5 · averaged

Kind of hands-on work · hands-on under 50 Less than half hands-on

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.7-work-setting measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

What this number leaves out This job rates 17.4 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

The tasks behind the score

The score is the average of these. A job is really a bundle of tasks, and an average can hide how uneven that bundle is.

The task AI could do most of scores 56.5, while the average is 36.3. A big gap means some of this job is wide open to AI and some of it barely at all. That's quite different from a job where everything sits somewhere in the middle, even when the averages match.

  1. 56.5

    Evaluating findings and develop strategies and arguments in preparation for presentation of cases

    Medium
  2. 46

    Drawing up legal documents such as contracts, real estate transactions and wills and preparing statements of legal opinions.

    Low
  3. 40

    Researching legal principles, statutes and previous court decisions related to specific cases

    Low
  4. 36.5

    Drafting legislation and preparing government regulations based on existing laws

    Low
  5. 33.5

    Negotiating settlements in matters which involve legal disputes

    Low
  6. 32

    Gathering evidence to formulate a defence or to initiate legal actions, by such means as interviewing clients and witnesses to ascertain the facts of a case

    Low
  7. 32

    Accepting briefs and pleading in the higher court

    Low
  8. 31.8

    Giving clients legal advice on a wide variety of subjects and undertaking legal business on clients’ behalf

    Low
  9. 30

    Pleading clients’ cases before courts of law, tribunals and administrative boards or instructing barristers to plead in higher courts of justice

    Low
  10. 25

    Acting as prosecutor on behalf of the Government

    Low

10 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.7-work-setting

Helped, or replaced?

The score above can't tell a tool that makes you faster from one that does the task instead of you. Jobs and Skills Australia looked at those two things separately, and this is their result, matched to this job.

3 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

AI helps you
61.3
AI does it for you
37

Helping wins by 24.3 points.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.7-work-setting matched to Australian jobs 2711, 2712, 2713

Compared with similar jobs

There are 92 jobs in the “Professionals” group, averaging 61.3. This one is above that.