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ARTICLE · 28 OCTOBER 2026

AI Is Not Replacing Lawyers — It Is Replacing Inefficiency

Druces LLP
Druces LLP
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Druces LLP

Druces LLP

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For two years, the legal profession has faced predictions that AI will make lawyers obsolete, but this narrative fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between technology and legal judgment.

United KingdomStrategy
Daniel Lloyd
Daniel Lloyd

For the past two years, the legal profession has become the favourite target of AI’s doomsayers. Every few weeks, another headline confidently predicts that AI tools such as Copilot will make lawyers obsolete. Why pay expensive legal fees, the argument goes, when AI can answer legal questions in seconds?

It’s an appealing narrative. It is also fundamentally wrong.

The legal profession has heard this story before. In the 1990s, when online legal research platforms such as Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis arrived, many predicted the end of traditional legal research. Instead, they transformed it. Lawyers no longer had to spend days searching shelves of law reports and could devote more time to analysing the implications for clients.

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