Skip to content
man bot
Compare

Professionals · code 2611

Lawyers

AI can draft the contract and find the case law. Standing up in court is still a lawyer's job.

Weighing up findings and building the case is the one task AI could take a fair chunk of. Drafting documents, arguing in court and prosecuting are mostly out of its reach.

What they actually do (and what else they get called)

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

  • lawyer

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

64 / 100

Mostly holds up against AI

AI can take a few chores off your plate, but most of the day is still yours.

Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.

← Robot's turf Human's turf →

The ILO's official verdict: Minimal Exposure

289 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 10 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 36.3 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 36.3 = 63.7.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Minimal Exposure”: A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't.

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.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Lawyers 64

v

Go on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.

Man v Bot

Where the bot helps, and where the human wins

Bot

What AI takes

The routine stuff. You may not miss it.

  • Legal research.
  • Drafting contracts and documents.
  • Reviewing evidence and case strategy.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Advocacy in court.
  • Negotiating settlements.
  • Advising clients and taking responsibility.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Checking AI-drafted work.
  • AI law and regulation.
  • Legal engineering and legal tech roles.

Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.

Meet your two rivals

They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.

The AI

Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.

Threat level: Medium

37 could do without you

It could take over some of the work, and help with more. It could help with 61 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

17 how hands-on

Not much of this job needs hands, so the robot can sit this one out.

So could a robot do the physical part?

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.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 8 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

17 How
hands-on
8 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Less than half hands-on

The small print

They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.

From O*NET, matched to one US job .

finger skill 16 · hand skill 1.7 · cramped spaces 7.5 · averaged · rule: hands-on under 50

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 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

The job, task by task

Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.

AI's favourite task here scores 57, against an average of 36. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 56

    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. 37

    Drafting legislation and preparing government regulations based on existing laws

    Low
  5. 34

    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. 32

    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 0.8-observed-use

Sidekick or replacement?

A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.

AI helps you
61
AI does it for you
37

Sidekick wins, by 24 points.

How good a match is this?

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

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 2711, 2712, 2713

Meanwhile, in real life…

Everything else here is about what AI could do. This is what people actually did. When they asked Claude for help with this kind of work, did they hand the whole task over, or roll their sleeves up and work through it together?

Out of every 100 conversations

69
31

worked through it together handed it over

The small print

Anthropic publishes this about its own product, and it doesn't feed into any score here. These are people who use Claude, not workers in general, so little use here doesn't mean AI can't reach the job. This job makes up 0.62% of the conversations.

These two add up to 100. The bars elsewhere on the page don't, because each is scored on its own, so we don't put them side by side.

observed use Anthropic Economic Index release 2026-06-26, period beginning 2026-05-01 data 0.8-observed-use 2026-05-01 · Anthropic, about its own product

So, should lawyers be worried?

Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.

The desk work is changing fast. Developing case strategy is rated Medium; drafting documents, research, legislation, negotiation, evidence, pleading, advice and prosecution are Low. Legal AI tools are strong at research and drafting, so value shifts to judgement, advocacy and client trust.

Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.

Where this job could lead

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 92 jobs in the “Professionals” family, averaging 61. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →