Ep 14: The dangers of AI to young lawyers

In this episode of This Week in Family Law, we discuss the demonstration hosted by US-based AI company Anthropic for its new legal plugin, which attracted 20,000 registrations from lawyers, as well as a controversial new celebrity endorsement for legal AI.

In Law in Motion, we explore how AI is reshaping how junior lawyers develop professional judgment and discuss some practical actions both junior lawyers and more experienced lawyers can take to ensure they don't get left behind.


Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction
0:52 - What's Up? - Updates in Family Law for this week
5:33 - Law in Motion - The dangers of AI to young lawyers


Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for general information and discussion purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice, and should not be relied on as such. The views expressed are general in nature and may not apply to your specific circumstances. You should seek independent legal advice before acting on any information discussed.


About the podcast:
This Week in Family Law is the go-to podcast for busy Australian family lawyers looking to stay updated without the overwhelm. Whether you’re a family lawyer in Australia, a practitioner working towards CPD, or simply interested in family law, this podcast delivers clear, practical insights in a bite-sized format. Subscribe to stay up to date with the latest developments in Australian family law. New episodes drop every Monday.



Topics covered in this episode:
- Family law industry updates
- Legal conference news (Hobart event)
- AI adoption in the legal profession
- Lawyers’ growing interest in AI tools
- Legal AI marketing and celebrity endorsements
- AI risks for junior lawyers
- Impact of AI on legal skill development
- LexisNexis AI research insights
- Importance of legal judgment and experience
- Mentorship and training in law firms

Links:
Registrations to the 21st National Family Law Conference in Hobart 
https://www.familylaw2026.com.au/

20,000 lawyers register for Anthropic demonstration of new legal plugin
https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-news/large-turnout-for-anthropic-demo-reflects-growing-interest-in-legal-ai/

Jude Law Legora advertisement
https://www.legalcheek.com/2026/04/legal-ai-giant-hires-jude-law/

Reece Witherspoon's Instagram video on AI
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXKphAtkbgW/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=6e96fc9e-2e6a-4d3b-98eb-623c006c6850

AI Research Articles
https://frostleadership.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/a-lawyers-capability-Toolkit.pdf

https://hbr.org/2026/02/how-do-workers-develop-good-judgment-in-the-ai-era

https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/pressroom/b/news/posts/ai-is-speeding-up-junior-lawyers-work-but-raising-questions-about-how-judgment-is-learned

https://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/insights/the-mentorship-gap/index.html

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10383441.2025.2493493#abstract

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17579961.2026.2633688

Submit a question or provide feedback:
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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:09

Welcome to This Week in Family Law, the go-to podcast for busy Australian family lawyers who want to stay updated without the overwhelm. I'm Jenna Downey, and my co-host today is Eleanor Brzewska. You went to Melbourne on the weekend for the intensive for the family law section, didn't you? How was it?

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Yes, I did. It was really good, actually. The latest and greatest is always great to listen to. It was presented by Justice Altabelli and Justice Christie, both of which we're very lucky to have at our recent conference. And it was a great day out, and certainly was nice to be in Melbourne for the weekend as well.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Yeah, make the most of it whilst you're there.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Yes, I did.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

Let's get into this week's updates. What's up, Eleanor?

SPEAKER_02 0:54

So three uh news segments this week. The first, some listeners may find disappointing. The national conference hosted in Hobart in October has been exhausted for registrations. So we'll share a link to the website in the show notes for listeners to be able to express an interest in attendance. There is a note on the website that you can express interest to attend certain days or also virtually should that option become available. But my guess is considering this probably has affected a lot of practitioners interested in attending that event, it may be the case that a virtual option is made available.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

If they have enough people on the wait list, I'm hoping that they will have that available.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

I hope so too. The second news segment is about a US-based AI company, Anthropic, who earlier this month hosted an AI demonstration, which was an hour long, and it was promoted at lawyers to essentially show their new legal plug-in. The reason it made the news is because there was 20,000 registered attendees, and ultimately I think about eight to 10,000 actually attended the demonstration. But what it really highlighted is to get that many lawyers interested in a free online one-hour webinar is a complete change in the appetite for AI. So the quote from that article is a year ago, lawyers were still asking whether to even use AI, and now everybody is asking how to use it well on real work.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Our third update is on celebrity endorsements of AI and the controversy surrounding them. And we'll share with you a snippet of a video that Jude Law did as ambassador for AI, legal giant Lagora.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

It's fair to assume that I know quite a bit about law. After all, my name is Jude. That's why Lagora, the legal AI company, hired me to be the face of their brand. Review confidently. Precisely research thoroughly.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Eleanor, what are your thoughts on the video? I'm trying to put my uh like for Jude Law aside and think about this from a lawyer's hat perspective. So the feedback online has been that while this is quite cheeky and attractive in terms of a marketing sense and doesn't take itself too seriously as there's so much online about AI already. Um, it's also probably not taking into account the real technical legal work and who this ad seeks to sell to, which is lawyers doing that work in practice. So there's been mixed reviews about it. I find it quite interesting uh as it almost has a Broadway appeal to it. Um, and it's it's done quite tastefully and in a fun way. But at the same time, is it really cutting through a skeptical lawyer who's thinking about whether or not to use legal AI?

SPEAKER_03 4:03

Yeah. And we also have a second video of Reese with a spoon, and she's promoting AI, and particularly for women.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

I think it's time to learn about AI. I was with 10 women at a book club yesterday, and I said to the 10 of them, how many of you guys use AI? And only three of them used AI. And then I said, How many of the three of you feel like you really know what you're doing? And that was only one person. The thing I've learned about technology is if you don't get a little bit of understanding from the very beginning, it just speeds past you. And let's get real, our kids are all using this every single day.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

And what are your thoughts on that video?

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Reese with a spoon actually got quite a bit of controversy for posting this video. It seems to be done in quite a casual and unscripted and unplanned way. But I think because of the celebrity endorsements that have recently been happening around AI, the assumption a lot of her viewers uh got was that she has been asked to do this as part of some brand endorsement. She has come out to say she has not. This is simply done as a parent. Um, she's realized that her children are using AI. She wants to be more informed about it and is encouraging women to be more informed about it. But certainly an interesting development in terms of celebrities and also, as I read, sporting teams also being approached to go out there and market AI.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

As interesting, isn't it? Thank you for this week's updates. And that's what's up for this week. For Laura in Motion this week, Eleanor's going to talk to us about junior lawyers in the age of AI. Eleanor.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Thanks, Jenna. I've noticed a lot of talk online about AI generally, but there was a comment on LinkedIn this week that particularly caught my attention, and essentially it said that depending on where you sit in the AI discussions, you may take different information with you and apply it differently. So are you a junior lawyer listening to this podcast and wondering how it's going to impact your growth and development? Are you a senior lawyer or a firm partner who's perhaps seeing it as a bit of a problem? Are you in a tech company wondering what other competitors and companies are doing with AI to advance it into the legal market? So there is a lot of academic research done about this topic. There's also a lot of opinions that are coming from colleagues. Certainly, we talk about it quite a lot at work. And what I want from this episode for our listeners to take away is three things. So, firstly, I just want to share some really recent Lexus Nexus 2026 research on specifically the topic of AI and young lawyers. Secondly, I want us to talk about what that research means and connect AI back to our own experiences. And thirdly, I want all our listeners to walk away with actionable steps they can implement in their firm, irrespective of what experience level they are, in order to work with AI as a thinking partner moving forward. So, firstly, the research, it was really interesting. It's a UK, UK-based research of 873 legal professionals. It was done in January this year. And some statistics that came out from it. So 65% of lawyers said they are faster when using AI. 72% have concerns, however, that junior lawyers using AI will struggle to develop legal reasoning. And we'll focus a little bit about that in this episode. 69% say they lack verification and resource checking skills. And interestingly, and probably most alarming, is 2% believe AI strengthens their learning. So only 2% of the people that took part in this survey. And the paper from Lexus Nexus, which we will share in the show notes, essentially says that the solution for this is training new lawyers to use AI as a thinking partner. But really, for a senior lawyer who understands what the workflow looks like in any particular matter, using AR for certain tasks they can identify can be automated, is a no-brainer. For a junior lawyer who doesn't quite understand in the hierarchy of tasks in a matter where to apply AI, it can be much more difficult to learn. And the question is, are young lawyers missing out on experiences that junior lawyers had even five years ago that we didn't recognize at the time were the learning moments of our career? There are a number of really interesting articles. One of them is prepared by a Sydney Consultancy Company about the specific AI use of junior by junior lawyers and what is the value proposal of lawyers and how can we center those values around the human element and how AI can be used. So all those articles, which I think are very, firstly, they're quite recent, secondly, they're relevant, they relate to the Sydney market, they are all included in our show notes, and I encourage our listeners to read those. Obviously, the theory behind it is that lawyers don't, young lawyers in particular, don't have the ability to form judgment, the confidence, and the the wisdom to apply what AI may produce and to use it as effectively as a senior lawyer. And I looked at through these papers a definition of how we uh how we essentially uh term uh legal judgment, how we term confidence, and how we term wisdom. So legal judgment really is learning how to make decisions on the basis of repetition, on the basis of um viewing a senior colleague or shadowing a senior colleague and forming over long periods of time is how we've been taught over long periods of time how to exercise legal judgment. Confidence is learned probably by confidence being shattered. So, um, and also by viewing how others make decisions where they are confident and then where they may be less confident and observing how confidence looks in practice. And thirdly, wisdom really happens over time. So it's a combination of confidence, it's a combination of legal judgment, but it's grounded in having time to build wisdom based on what you are observing. So, particularly the consultancy article, which is again linked in the show notes, goes into how lawyers can build wisdom and where are lawyers most valuable in practice. So there are again a lot of, there's a lot of study about this topic and a lot of commentary about this topic, but bringing those statistics back to us specifically. So over nearly 70% of lawyers surveyed in that Lexus Nexus survey say that they don't think they have the skills needed to verify or cut through the AI output. Which brings me to the second part of the takeaway message of this topic, which is what are the moments in practice that we remember they were the learning moments of practice? So there's a few questions that I'm going to openly ask our viewers to listen, um, to think about. Sorry, when did you develop your judgment as a lawyer? And what experience was the most formative if you think about back to being a junior lawyer? Certainly, if you are a junior lawyer, what is a recent experience that you believe is something that you're going to walk away with and remember? Um, and I'll share what mine was. Um it's a mix of things, but certainly was attending court and usually attending court with a senior practitioner who I was observing for the day. Um it's sitting across the table and having probably a piece of writing that I've prepared, whether it's uh a draft case outline or whether it's a letter to a client closely scrutinized by again a more senior practitioner, usually with a red pen, and having that tension of watching your work being observed while wondering whether or not you could have reframe certain paragraphs and having that moment of reflection on the spot. And another one that really sticks out in mind as a learning exercise is having conversations with clients in an open office and knowing that that advice giving is being listened to by more senior practitioners and other colleagues, and being very conscious of how I delivered advice on the phone or how I dealt with particularly maybe even an awkward or tense moment with a client. So is there something that sticks out to you, Jenna, that you think about that was a formative learning moment?

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Yeah, I mean that there are definitely a few, and I feel that it probably took a good five years of practice for me to feel fully comfortable in speaking to clients in a way that I felt myself informed. So I feel like there is quite a period of time to learn and grow and to have those experiences like what you're talking about, to develop that comfortableness and confidence to be able to have the any conversation with a client really that needs to happen throughout the duration of a family law matter. In terms of a standout, for me, it's probably being witness to initial client meetings and client consultations, because I feel like in those meetings you cover so many different things. You try to address clients' questions, you try to get through advice in terms of what the law says in relation to parenting and property, and maybe divorce is an issue, and child support might be an issue, that there's so many things that crop up. So it really is in a nutshell, this is for you know tailored to your matter, some advice that you should receive. And I remember being told, not only did I learn a lot in terms of the the law, I suppose, and how clients react in those situations, and many of them haven't seen a lawyer before. But I remember being told that what a client would remember from those conferences is not necessarily the information that you give to them because that will eventually be forgotten, but it's how you made them feel. So it is that interaction, that that people-to-people interaction that is so meaningful, particularly as a family lawyer. And it really, I feel like that's really stuck with me.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Absolutely. It's I also remember being part of initial conferences and you sit back and you observe what is said and what is not said just as much, because there is there is a lot of there are soft skills there. Um, there is a lot that's laid out. It's usually that involves an element of emotion, it involves an element of advice giving that's not preferable to the client. So there are moments of learning that go well beyond the technical legal skills applied by the senior in that room of you observing as a junior lawyer and you're observing it all. And I think that's the paradox of AI. On one hand, it is removing a lot of mundane work that that junior lawyer, for instance, rather than sitting in on a client conference, could have been spending hours looking through financial disclosure. There are now tools to enable them to do that more rapidly, focusing them in on work that is seen to be more formative or more valuable in their career development. But in doing so, it's actually putting the young lawyer in a situation where they're much sooner in their career, need to exercise their judgment and in some ways in a much more complicated um point in their career because they are straight away starting off with a first draft, but they now need to curate that draft. Um they need to spend less time looking at mundane financial disclosure, but they need to spend more time in a client conference requiring more skilled, um just more skill overall, more wisdom in knowing how to deal with people, um, which is not learned in a short period of time. So it's interesting. One of the articles I read was not written by a lawyer, but written by another young professional who said young professionals in all industries are being told that they should celebrate AI and we are celebrating and excited to use it. But are we really the luckiest generation, or is there something AI is removing from our experience overall? And I think one of the the third and key thing we want listeners to take away from this episode is what can be done, because a lot of these conversations are being had by firm owners. Um, certainly as we attend many events, we have these conversations with practitioners that share the same concerns. And the next step is what can we all do in firms to essentially assist the next generation of lawyers? There's three takeaways that I want listeners to walk away with. The first is to place a real importance on group mentorship. I know a lot of firms meet together to discuss FARS in a group setting, possibly on a weekly basis. But are they scrutinizing AI output on a weekly basis? Or are they bringing examples to the table that are outside of strict fire work, but that are more broadly addressing the elephant in the room of AI use? Because your junior lawyers, if you're a senior practitioner listening to this, your junior lawyers are using AI. They may not be using AI as part of your practice management software, but they're using AI in their day-to-day lives. And if you're not looking at a set of output and scrutinizing it as a group and explaining to the junior lawyers why a particular piece of legal research, for instance, or a draft affidavit needs to be corrected or can be improved in certain ways, that you're not training the young generation how to interact with AI. So group-based learning, uh, bringing together learning moments from everyone at whatever level you are from the firm and introducing AI in those conversations.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Yeah, it's a really good point because it's almost saying for the senior practitioners, you can't put your head in the sand as to what you might want to happen because you have your junior practitioners who are very likely using it in their daily lives. So you have to deal and manage with like manage that really and go about it the right way that they are learning how to review output properly to be able to use it in practice. There's no point doing a complete prohibition on AI for your firm. I don't know if there's any firms that would even still do that, but y there's no point trying to avoid it. It's more so just trying to manage the situation and making it work best for the firm and their lawyers. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

The second uh takeaway along the same line of group discussion is the one-on-one mentoring. And the reason I highlight this and it it sounds similar to group mentoring, except it's one-on-one. I think it's particularly valuable to have one-on-one mentoring that is visible to the firm. I have certainly experienced moments where as a junior lawyer I have gone to a practitioner before the working day starts, a senior practitioner before the working day starts or after the working day ends, just to not spend any of their valuable billable time on mentoring me or answering a question. And I've had the same uh, you know, uh paralegals or junior lawyer starting out come to me at times when um their supervising solicitor probably didn't know we had conversations, but they would come at lunchtime or they'll come in in the middle of a meeting just quickly. I think the real concern is if there is no visibility, and this mentoring job usually goes to your five years plus lawyer at the firm. So let's say at an associate or higher level, then that person not only is now taking on more complex legal work and probably taking on some large files with complicated issues, they're now also responsible for mentoring the younger solicitors in the practice, which creates a tension within their own billables. But also, I think any mentorship in an isolated and non-visible way is problematic because there needs to be transparency. It's there, it needs to be welcomed because it's something that is ultimately beneficial, not only for the individuals involved in that conversation, but for the firm as a whole. So one-on-one training and in a visible way, having that in your calendar and being able to say that one hour of my week is spent with this person, and the junior lawyer is saying that is one hour of non billable work, but I will get my mentorship from this and I'll have all my answers question uh my all my questions answered, and the senior being able to also say that was time dedicated. And obviously, in between that, there'll be moments where you know. Questions need to be answered. But don't let that conversation happen over a lunch break or before or after working hours and let that happen as part of your workflow.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

Yeah, build it into your day.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

Absolutely. And the third and final thing is I think creating moments for learning is very important. Because to junior lawyers listening to this, they'll probably say, I don't want to seem too available. I don't want to be asking for a learning moment to shadow someone for a conference or for a court event. And I'm not, I've already seen the partner's diary. I don't think there's anything there that I could shadow for that would be appropriate for me to sit in on. And as a senior lawyer listening, you might be thinking, well, I have so much on. I don't have a capacity to think about what the junior lawyer may or may not benefit from being involved in. And my answer to both is for the junior lawyer, try and ask. If you don't ask, you won't know. And I know that sounds obvious, but really people like to be asked to be a mentor. People are like to be asked to help. So if you don't give your partner or your senior solicitor that opportunity or that question, you might just never know whether that's something they're open to. And the senior solicitor, if you're not sure what to involve your junior solicitors in, then ask them to have a think about that. They probably have given it some thought and probably, you know, in a shy way have sat on it. If you ask them to think about it and brainstorm it, they'll probably come up with options. But the main, the main interaction between those creating moments is make it really clear what is the purpose of that junior lawyer sitting in. So if it's an initial conference, make their attendance valuable. They're not there to just sit back and observe, or this is not a moment where they've lost an hour of billable time. Make it clear to them exactly what the purpose of their attendance to anything is and ask them to use AI, for instance, to summarize what they learned. So an initial conference, if they took down some notes, how can they use AI to pull the notes together? They can present you with the notes summarized, and maybe they can reflect as well how AI and the summaries they receive from AI may differ to what they experienced playing out in front of them during the conference. That is a moment of them learning how to differentiate AI versus a real experience playing out. So make it clear what the benefit of their attendance is and make it an actionable step for them where they can compare AI use with real life personal skills. So I hope everyone listening in can take something from that and certainly have a read of the articles that are there and watch this space because obviously we are going to be speaking a lot about AI, but we also want our listeners to have practicable steps they can take away from in all our episodes. So we'll ask for everyone to reflect on that and implement it in their practice.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

Thank you, Eleanor. I certainly found that helpful to hear your perspective on it, particularly as we hear a lot and from our clients, especially that they are concerned about how junior lawyers are using AI and how it will change the way that those senior practitioners may have done things when they were baby lawyers as well. So thank you. We've loved being in your ears this week. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share this episode. If you have any questions or feedback, please reach out to us by email or you can reach us on YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok. Stay tuned for next week's episode. New episode drops every Monday.