The recent case won by a combination of Garfield AI and a junior barrister (Dominic Li) in a county court, marks a significant step.
Does it mean that the legal profession will be leaving droves of paralegals and assistants? Certainly, it changes the economics of pursuing small debts.
Hitherto, SME Owners would have to balance the legal costs against the size of the debt. Likely as not, this results in debts below £10,000 becoming unrecoverable.
Garfield AI generated pre-action correspondence and prepared documentation for court proceedings, slashing the traditional costs. To have fought the case all the way to court, rebutted the counterclaim, and won an award of £7000 is highly significant.
How does this potentially impact the traditional legal pyramid ( 1 Partner:5 Associates:10 Paralegals)? If the workload of trainee solicitors and paralegals falls away, how does that affect the flow of willing recruits into the profession?
How do the burgeoning number of colleges of Legal Education cope with the slowdown in student enrollment?
Meanwhile, is there an opportunity for small law practices to use Agentic AI to encroach on the turf of their larger rivals by providing the same services …but cheaper?
I help professional service firms to respond to this new landscape of AI systems acting autonomously. DM if you are curious about how you might take up this opportunity.
