Jobs and AI

Solicitors and legal professionals

Legal work scores highly for exposure to language-based AI.

How to read this page. No source gives a reliable "risk score" for individual UK jobs, so we don't invent one. We summarise what named studies say. The Department for Education's report measures exposure to AI (how far AI could touch the abilities a job uses), not whether jobs will be lost or helped, and it says its results "should be interpreted with caution". Read the sources and make up your own mind.

What the evidence says

DfE (2023) ranks solicitors 2nd and other legal professionals 6th for exposure to large language models (the tech behind chatbots), and both appear in its top 20 for AI overall.
Law sits in the report's group of professional occupations "particularly those associated with more clerical work".

What it means in practice

Our summary, based on the sources above. It's general guidance, not a prediction.

  • Drafting, document review and research summaries are changing first.
  • Advocacy, negotiation, client care and professional responsibility stay with people.
  • Confidentiality matters: check your firm's rules before putting client data into any AI tool (see the ICO guidance).

Next steps

Use the career-switch planner, check free and funded training, or browse new and emerging roles.

Change log

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