Accepted author manuscript, 429 KB, PDF document
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Final published version, 914 KB, PDF document
Final published version, 928 KB, PDF document
Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Trajectories of legal work in the context of machine learning AI
T2 - conceptualising mediated evolution
AU - Faulconbridge, James
PY - 2025/3/31
Y1 - 2025/3/31
N2 - This paper explores the impacts of machine learning (ML), as one form of artificial intelligence, on legal work by examining three questions. First, it considers trajectories and how ML is being used in legal work. Actually existing use cases are examined to reveal how ML is changing legal work. Second, it considers questions about the barriers that are standing in the way of different trajectories, with the more rapid adoption of tried and tested forms of ML and some of the more radical changes that have been predicted being contingent on a range of factors. Third, this paper considers how evolution might change spaces of legal work and the legal profession. It examines both what ML might do to reconfigure the role of the lawyer within law firms and other spaces, and how lawyers might respond to this as the professional project adapts to the challenge of artificial intelligence. Through the analysis the paper develops the concept of mediated evolution which is a way of conceptualising change in legal work that is material and meaningful, but which is also path dependent and non-linear and thus needs to be understood through situated analysis of the enactment in practice of change
AB - This paper explores the impacts of machine learning (ML), as one form of artificial intelligence, on legal work by examining three questions. First, it considers trajectories and how ML is being used in legal work. Actually existing use cases are examined to reveal how ML is changing legal work. Second, it considers questions about the barriers that are standing in the way of different trajectories, with the more rapid adoption of tried and tested forms of ML and some of the more radical changes that have been predicted being contingent on a range of factors. Third, this paper considers how evolution might change spaces of legal work and the legal profession. It examines both what ML might do to reconfigure the role of the lawyer within law firms and other spaces, and how lawyers might respond to this as the professional project adapts to the challenge of artificial intelligence. Through the analysis the paper develops the concept of mediated evolution which is a way of conceptualising change in legal work that is material and meaningful, but which is also path dependent and non-linear and thus needs to be understood through situated analysis of the enactment in practice of change
U2 - 10.1080/09695958.2025.2458039
DO - 10.1080/09695958.2025.2458039
M3 - Journal article
VL - 32
SP - 97
EP - 120
JO - International Journal of the Legal Profession
JF - International Journal of the Legal Profession
SN - 0969-5958
IS - 1
ER -