The need for actual lawyers will persist I think from my own experience. I attempted drafting a contract with some points myself using AI, but after several edits I wasn't sure if it was correct. Sending it to an actual lawyer ended up in so many corrections I couldn't imagine the first time. One big thing was the overly excessive protective clauses which didn't make sense for reality or conflicted with another.
Its just like code I suppose, if you can read and understand and validate, you can use it to scale and otherwise it could end up being a vibe effort.
I want to take a step back and observe that you're saying expensive specialists will continue to be required if two parties want to make an agreement. That seems like something worth fixing rather than just accepting.
It's probably somewhat of a zero sum game. Both sides lawyers have AI tools which probably just keeps them on a level playing field rather than actually making anything cheaper or faster.
I spoke to a very very high up corporate lawyer specialising in tech - so knows Ai is real. And they said AI contracts are the bane of their existence. They’d rather you arrive with no idea what you want than a contract partially written by AI. They said it usually takes longer with an AI starting point than starting from scratch.
> I want to take a step back and observe that you're saying expensive specialists will continue to be required if two parties want to make an agreement.
A lot of contract-lawyering involves getting ahead of when things go south and the two previously agreeing parties find themselves in disagreement.
Same for SWE. AIs will churn out happy path vibe slop and fail when something unexpected happens by swallowing errors or having a bunch of terrible "fallbacks".
In my experience, those expensive specialists help me protect against things me and the counterparty cannot even imagine when making an agreement. Do you mean that this would be fixed by AI or by making simpler agreements?
When it can imagine real risks and not hallucinations, I am sure it will be better than having a human lawyer write the agreement. I am not convinced that we are there yet.
Millions if not billions of agreements are made every day without the involvement of lawyers. Lawyers are only needed for particularly complex situations and even there they are generally only "needed" in the sense that parties feel they would add value.
Yeah, and you can already get fill in the blank legal forms for a lot of basic situations, including leases, wills, employment agreements, etc.
The interesting question is whether AI can fill a niche these can’t — or, alternatively, help a layperson evaluate a contract they’re asked to sign better than they could themselves.
Contract law has evolved because transfering the ownership of things is fraught with difficulty. Ownership as a concept itself is notoriously hard to define.
Consider housing - when you buy a house you own that land. Except if its an apartment, you just own the internal walls. Or when the government aquires your land through eminent domain. Or mineral rights - which don't belong to you, you just own the top 5 feet of topsoil. Or if you neglect a property and some squats in it. Or if you were given a fraudulent payment, and they take back the property.
Just getting people to agree is notoriously difficult when people have different often conflicting desires.
Most people dont appreciate that the world is a complex place. Nothing is ever simple, sure concepts can be extremely simplified but the nuances and details are lost. These details are the important parts, just ask a surgeon or rocket scientist etc.
halamadrid · · focus · HN ↗
Its just like code I suppose, if you can read and understand and validate, you can use it to scale and otherwise it could end up being a vibe effort.
Buttons840 · · focus · HN ↗
jonplackett · · focus · HN ↗
If the expensive person is still better at getting what _you_ want from a contract then it’s always worth doing that.
There’s a reason lawyers are so expensive to begin with - they do very complicated stuff with very expensive consequences if done badly.
SchemaLoad · · focus · HN ↗
jonplackett · · focus · HN ↗
overfeed · · focus · HN ↗
A lot of contract-lawyering involves getting ahead of when things go south and the two previously agreeing parties find themselves in disagreement.
jjmarr · · focus · HN ↗
mcculley · · focus · HN ↗
1attice · · focus · HN ↗
mcculley · · focus · HN ↗
NoboruWataya · · focus · HN ↗
smelendez · · focus · HN ↗
The interesting question is whether AI can fill a niche these can’t — or, alternatively, help a layperson evaluate a contract they’re asked to sign better than they could themselves.
legostormtroopr · · focus · HN ↗
Contract law has evolved because transfering the ownership of things is fraught with difficulty. Ownership as a concept itself is notoriously hard to define.
Consider housing - when you buy a house you own that land. Except if its an apartment, you just own the internal walls. Or when the government aquires your land through eminent domain. Or mineral rights - which don't belong to you, you just own the top 5 feet of topsoil. Or if you neglect a property and some squats in it. Or if you were given a fraudulent payment, and they take back the property.
Just getting people to agree is notoriously difficult when people have different often conflicting desires.
MiroslavPokorny · · focus · HN ↗
alansaber · · focus · HN ↗