Legal talent 2.0: developing skills for the age of AI

For generations, lawyers have learned by doing. The early research, drafting, review and analysis that shaped junior lawyers’ development were not just tasks to be completed. They were part of the profession’s training ground.

AI is now changing that training ground, raising a question every legal organisation will need to answer: how do future lawyers build judgement when some of the work that once developed it is no longer done in the same way?

That question takes the AI conversation beyond efficiency. Productivity gains matter, but the deeper issue is capability. If AI increasingly supports or performs the work that helped junior lawyers build confidence, firms need to be more deliberate about what replaces that experience, how learning is structured and how professional judgement is developed.

The question is not whether junior lawyers remain important. They do. The question is whether the profession can continue relying on the same routes to development when the work itself is changing so quickly.

The changing foundations of legal development

Legal training has traditionally depended on simple progression. After formal legal education, junior lawyers build confidence through practical work: reviewing documents, conducting research, comparing contracts and preparing first drafts have all played an important role in that process.

These tasks may have seemed routine, but they were rarely just administrative. They helped lawyers learn how to spot issues, test arguments, understand client context and recognise where legal risk sits. They also helped develop the habits that underpin good advice: attention to detail, intellectual discipline and the ability to move from information to judgement.

Today, many of these activities can now be completed, at least in part, by supervised AI tools. Experienced lawyers are therefore spending more time applying judgement and strategic thinking, while routine elements of legal work are increasingly automated.

This creates a real development challenge. If lawyers have historically built competence through this experiential learning and exposure to foundational tasks, we cannot assume the same skills will continue to develop through exposure alone – it may need to be designed with more care.

This does not make junior lawyers less valuable. The role of junior lawyers may change, but developing the next generation of legal experts remains essential to sustaining legal capability over the long term. But the shift to an AI-enabled practice of law does call for an intentional - and substantial - reconsideration of how they are developed.

Defining the AI-augmented lawyer

The lawyers who thrive in this environment will not be those who simply use AI more often. They will be those who know how to work with it well.

The AI-augmented lawyer combines legal expertise with the ability to work effectively alongside AI systems: supervising, challenging and applying AI-generated outputs responsibly. That means understanding how AI produces answers, knowing when those answers may be useful and recognising when they need further scrutiny.

AI literacy is becoming a baseline professional skill. But literacy does not mean blind confidence in the technology. As recent incidents across the industry have shown, lawyers cannot rely on AI outputs alone; they must verify, challenge and be accountable for the advice they give to clients.

The timeless hallmarks of high-quality legal work - critical thinking, creativity, commercial awareness and strategic judgement – therefore become even more valuable. AI does not replace these capabilities; it amplifies their importance.

Exceptional lawyers bring judgement that AI cannot replicate. They exercise normative judgement (what ought to be done, not just what is likely), weigh legal risk against commercial and reputational considerations, and advise clients in ways that reflect ethics, context and relationships. AI can assist in gathering and organising information, but it cannot assume accountability for difficult decisions, nor can it replace the trusted adviser role that depends on human judgement, empathy and strategic insight.

A culture of continuous learning

If AI is changing how expertise is developed, and the skills required of the AI-augmented lawyer, learning itself must evolve.

Technical fluency is only one part of that shift. Lawyers must also develop metacognitive skills: awareness of how AI influences their own thinking, when to rely on it, when to challenge it, and the discipline to interrogate AI outputs rather than accept them at face value. These skills underpin safe and effective use of AI and help ensure that technology enhances, rather than dilutes, professional standards.

This cannot be treated as a one-off initiative. AI capabilities will continue to advance rapidly, requiring a continuous commitment to learning that is embedded into everyday work. Structured training programs remain important, but organisations must move beyond introductory sessions and create ongoing opportunities for employees to build practical confidence, develop supervision skills and understand how to use AI safely in real matters.

The medical profession offers an interesting comparison. Surgeons do not learn complex procedures simply by repeating low-value supporting tasks; they develop expertise through active teaching, supervised practice, and progressively greater responsibility. Legal training may need to evolve in a similar direction.

Junior lawyers may learn more through guided participation in complex work, with experienced lawyers explaining not only what decision was made, but why it was made. That kind of coaching takes time, but it is likely to become more important as routine work becomes less central to development.

This may also require organisations to invest more deliberately in learning. Not every aspect of professional development will be recoverable through client work. Some of it may need to be recognised as a strategic investment in capability-building, similar to research and development. The organisations that make those investments successfully will be better placed to build sustainable talent pipelines in an AI-enabled profession.

Experimentation matters too. Lawyers need time and encouragement to test AI in practical ways, understand where it adds value, and learn where its limitations sit. Over time, this kind of continuous learning builds cognitive flexibility, increasing lawyers’ ability to move between their own legal reasoning and AI-assisted analysis, and to compare, critique and reconcile the two.

Neuroscience increasingly suggests that exposure to varied problem-solving approaches can support neuroplasticity, helping professionals adapt to changing environments. Applied to law, this means designing training and work in ways that encourage our people, lawyers and legal professionals, to reflect on how they are thinking, how AI is influencing that thinking, and how to preserve robust judgement even as tools evolve.

Over time, this helps build a workforce that is not only confident using AI today, but capable of adapting as the technology continues to evolve and keep pace with change.

AI and the competition for talent

The implications of these changes extend beyond skills development. They also influence how organisations attract and retain talent.

For the best legal talent, AI is becoming a baseline expectation. Lawyers entering and progressing through the profession increasingly expect AI-enabled tools and workflows to form part of their everyday working environment. Providing access to AI tools alone will cease to be a differentiator. What will matter is whether employers are investing in the skills, training and career pathways needed to succeed in an AI-enabled profession.

Organisations that recognise this shift early will be better positioned to attract the next generation of lawyers who want to work at the intersection of legal expertise and advanced technology.

Conclusion

AI will change how legal work is delivered, but it will not change the importance of human expertise. Clients will still rely on lawyers for judgement, context, creativity and the confidence to guide complex decisions where there is no simple answer.

For legal organisations, the challenge is to make sure both current and future generations of lawyers are ready for that environment. That means investing in continuous learning, building AI literacy alongside critical judgement, creating space for experimentation and rethinking how expertise is developed when traditional routes to learning are changing.

The firms that get this right will be better placed to build confident, capable AI-augmented lawyers. They will also be more attractive to the people they need to retain and recruit: lawyers who want access to modern tools, but also expect the training, support and culture to use them well.

In an AI-enabled profession, talent will not be defined by technology alone. It will be defined by the organisations that know how to combine it with deep human expertise, sound judgement and a serious commitment to developing their people.