Most lawyers treat artificial general intelligence (AGI) as science fiction rather than strategic planning; however, asking “What if AGI…?” isn’t an academic exercise, rather it’s essential preparation for the future of legal practice
Key points:
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Timeline compression matters — Before ChatGPT, AI experts predicted AGI in 20 to 40 years; today, most say 5 to10 years. This acceleration demands immediate strategic thinking.
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Junior lawyer work displacement is inevitable — AGI systems that match human cognitive performance will fundamentally reshape legal career paths and firm economics and shift client expectations around service and billing.
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First-mover advantage exists — Law firms that prepare now for AGI scenarios will capture disproportionate value during the transition.
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Welcome back to The AI Law Professor. Last month, I outlined practical AI governance frameworks for current tools. This month, I’m pushing into the future with a question that makes most lawyers uncomfortable: What if artificial general intelligence (AGI) arrives sooner than we expect?
The “What if AGI…?” question isn’t about predicting the future with certainty. It’s about stress-testing our assumptions, challenging our comfort zones, and preparing for scenarios that could fundamentally reshape legal practice within this decade.
Why the timeline matters
AGI is in essence AI that matches human cognitive performance across all domains, not just chess or image recognition, but in legal reasoning, client counseling, and strategic thinking. Before November 2022, this seemed safely distant; however, ChatGPT and generative AI (GenAI) changed everything.
As Richard Susskind noted in his book, How to Think About AI, experts who once predicted AGI in 20 to 40 years now estimate 5 to 10 years, so asking the “What if AGI…?” question now is essential. This timeline compression isn’t speculative; rather, it reflects the exponential pace of AI advancement that we’re witnessing daily.
For legal professionals, this acceleration creates an urgent planning imperative. If AGI arrives by 2035 or even 2030, law students entering school today will graduate into a legal profession transformed beyond recognition. Partners planning retirement in 15 years may find their firms operating under completely different models.
That means that the question isn’t whether to prepare for AGI, but rather how quickly can we begin?
The junior lawyer problem
Current discussions about AI in law focus primarily on productivity gains and how using AI tools will make lawyers more efficient. AGI scenarios force us beyond incremental improvements to fundamental questions about legal work itself.
Consider the career path of junior associates. Today, they perform document review, legal research, first-draft memoranda, and basic client communication — work that builds skills and generates revenue. In an AGI world, artificial systems will likely perform these tasks more accurately, consistently, and cost-effectively than humans.
The implications are profound. If junior-level work disappears, how do lawyers develop expertise? How do firms train their next generation of partners? How do legal careers begin when the bottom rungs of the ladder no longer exist?
Progressive firms are already exploring answers. Some are redesigning associate roles to focus on client interaction, strategic thinking, and creative problem-solving, and other areas in which human judgment may retain advantages even in an AGI world.
Economic model disruption
There are other disruptions beyond training new lawyers. For example, the billable hour, already under pressure, becomes completely unsustainable in AGI scenarios. When artificial systems can produce high-quality legal work in minutes rather than hours, pricing based on time becomes economically irrational.
Client expectations will shift accordingly — indeed, they already are and will continue to do so. Why should a client pay $500 per hour for research that AGI can complete in seconds in real-time? Why accept week-long turnarounds for contract review that AGI can finish overnight? Why tolerate human inconsistency when artificial systems deliver predictable quality?
Early adopters, those firms that develop AGI-powered service models will capture significant competitive advantages. Late adopters will find themselves defending unsustainable pricing against superior alternatives.
Not surprisingly, forward-looking firms are already experimenting with outcome-based pricing, fixed-fee arrangements, and subscription models that anticipate this transition. They’re building client relationships based on strategic value rather than time expenditure. What is your firm doing?
Change management for the unthinkable
The most challenging aspect of AGI preparation isn’t technical, it’s psychological. Unfortunately, the legal profession’s conservative culture resists fundamental change, even when that change appears inevitable.
Successful preparation requires law firm leaders to have honest conversations about what AGI means for individual careers, firm structures, and professional identity. These discussions will be uncomfortable but avoiding them guarantees a firm will be unprepared when AGI arrives.
These conversations also mean acknowledging that professional success in an AGI world will require different skills, different strategies, and different measures of value than those that defined success in the past.
Practical preparation steps
Asking “What if AGI…?” isn’t just an intellectual exercise. It should drive concrete actions today, including:
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- Scenario planning — This starts with modeling different AGI timelines. What happens to your firm if AGI arrives in five years rather than ten? Which practice areas remain human-centric? Which client relationships depend on personal connection compared to those that depend more on technical legal expertise?
- Skill development — Focus on capabilities that complement rather than compete with AGI. Emotional intelligence, creative problem-solving, ethical reasoning, and strategic thinking become more valuable attributes as routine cognitive tasks become automated.
- Business model experimentation — Experiment with pricing structures and service delivery methods that anticipate AGI capabilities. Start with limited pilot programs that price outcomes rather than hours. Develop subscription-based legal services for routine matters, and build client relationships around strategic value.
- Partnership strategies — Explore collaborations with AI companies, legal tech startups, and other forward-thinking firms. The transition to AGI-powered legal services will require capabilities beyond traditional legal expertise.
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Firms that seriously engage with AGI scenarios today will develop significant advantages over those that wait. Proactive firms will build client relationships based on strategic value rather than time spent on work. They’ll develop internal capabilities that complement rather than compete with AI; and they’ll create business models that scale with AI capabilities rather than being threatened by them.
Most importantly, these firms will train their lawyers to think beyond current limitations and toward future possibilities. This mindset shift — from defending existing practices to exploring new opportunities — may prove more valuable than any specific preparation strategy.
Beyond survival to leadership
The legal profession has navigated technological transitions before, from typewriters to computers, from law libraries to online databases, from paper filing to electronic courts. Each transition created winners and losers based primarily on adaptation speed and strategic thinking.
AGI represents a transition of unprecedented scope and speed, but the fundamental dynamics remain the same. Organizations that anticipate change, experiment with new models, and invest in future capabilities will lead the profession through this transformation.
Indeed, the question isn’t whether AGI will reshape legal practice; it’s whether your firm will help shape that transformation or simply react to it.
Asking “What if AGI…?” today positions you to answer confidently tomorrow.
In my next column, we’ll explore how an AI-powered legal risk management systems can prevent problems rather than just solve them, and what this means for the traditional lawyer-client relationship
