The lawyer after AI: three horizons for the future of the legal profession

This article develops a conceptual foresight framework for the future of the legal profession in the age of artificial intelligence. Rather than asking whether AI will replace lawyers, it examines progressively deeper levels of change: the redistribution of legal tasks, the reorganisation of professional roles and organisations, and ultimately the reconsideration of professional jurisdiction. Using three analytical horizons – 2030, 2035 and 2040 – the article considers how AI may reshape legal production, professional judgment, organisational structures, client relationships and accountability. It develops a functional account of lawyering centred on legal knowledge, production, judgment, representation and trust, and professional authority and accountability. Its central claim is that technological capability does not by itself determine institutional allocation: the fact that AI can perform a legal function does not mean that legal institutions will detach it from accountable professional actors or organisations. The article describes the possible continued reservation of selected functions involving judgment, representation, authorisation and accountability as functional reservation. It argues that the future boundary between lawyers and AI may depend less on what machines can do than on how legal systems allocate professional authority, responsibility and the competencies required to exercise them.