For decades, we’ve been enamored by visions of technology liberating us from drudgery, and today that narrative has evolved to include generative AI—heralded widely as the great workload reducer, particularly in the legal industry. Yet, upon closer scrutiny, recent research reveals a more nuanced, perhaps even sobering, truth about artificial intelligence and its actual effect on legal professionals.
A 2025 study by legal scholars Daniel Schwarcz and J.J. Prescott provides valuable insights. Their controlled experiments with junior legal workers, who used AI tools such as GPT-powered assistants, did indeed confirm meaningful improvements in efficiency and even work quality. Routine tasks—drafting letters, preliminary reviews—were expedited significantly, sometimes halving the required hours. But here’s the caveat: the reduced workload did not translate to fewer overall hours worked or decreased billing. Instead, the saved time was swiftly reallocated to additional tasks or higher caseloads, preserving or even amplifying the intensity of their labor.
Similarly, a thoughtful 2024 field study by Colleen Chien and Miriam Kim at Berkeley examined legal aid attorneys integrating AI tools into their daily routines. Participants reported initial optimism as generative AI swiftly handled repetitive drafting and research. Yet deeper probing unearthed subtle complexities—initial hesitance among practitioners, particularly women, revealed gaps in trust and training. Only after targeted support did these professionals embrace the technology fully. Notably, even then, the AI didn’t simplify their roles so much as reshape them, shifting responsibilities from mundane paperwork to increased management tasks and higher-stakes advisory roles.
What emerges from these studies is a richer, more textured narrative: generative AI does, indeed, streamline specific legal tasks, but its widespread adoption has not automatically created the leisure or ease often promised. Instead, we see workload intensification, shifting responsibilities, and new managerial demands that counterbalance efficiency gains. The supposed liberation from tedious labor, in practice, becomes a redefinition rather than outright elimination of workload.
Perhaps it’s time we temper our excitement with realism. Artificial intelligence isn’t delivering the simplistic productivity utopia we’ve envisioned; rather, it’s subtly transforming work, redistributing tasks, and sometimes intensifying expectations. Understanding this reality—nuanced, complex, and far from uniform—is essential if we wish to leverage AI’s genuine potential effectively rather than perpetuating idealistic myths.
