Public interest in artificial intelligence continues to intensify worldwide. At the American Economic Association Annual Meeting held in Philadelphia, United States, on January 3, 2026, former U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner William Beach stated, “People should no longer choose law as a career path. Law firms will no longer hire new law school graduates.” The prevailing prediction is that AI will eventually eliminate jobs in the legal profession.

I participate in several anonymous group chats made up of lawyers, and everywhere I go, conversations about AI are filled with both curiosity and anxiety. In one chatroom with more than 450 attorneys, messages frequently appear saying things like, “In the future AI will take away lawyers’ jobs. Legal fees are constantly declining. It is becoming difficult to sleep because of the uncertainty.”

That anxiety is probably justified. Even in my own practice, I have continuously postponed plans to hire junior associate attorneys. The performance of legal AI tools has improved so significantly that enormous amounts of time can now be saved on basic legal research and case law searches. In fact, job postings for junior associates have noticeably declined.

However, that is where the story changes. When asking AI to draft complex legal briefs or answer difficult follow-up questions involving sophisticated legal issues, its limitations become clear. Like all AI systems, the quality of the answer depends heavily on how precise and well-structured the question is. Ultimately, the quality of the output varies depending on who is using it. Naturally, identifying what is incorrect, incomplete, or problematic in AI-generated legal analysis requires substantial legal expertise and practical experience. AI functions much like a navigation system in a car — it amplifies the capabilities of its user, but it cannot create abilities the user does not already possess.

Of course, this transformation is not entirely positive for individual lawyers. Tasks such as legal research, contract drafting and review, and simple document preparation are increasingly performed better and faster by AI systems. In that sense, lawyers are already losing part of their traditional work territory. As those responsibilities shift away, lawyers must develop new areas of expertise. Whether they like it or not, work that AI performs more effectively will inevitably move to AI systems, and adapting to new professional territory will undoubtedly be challenging.

For this reason, the prediction that AI will eliminate the jobs of some lawyers is a reasonable one. However, AI cannot fully replace lawyers. The greatest obstacle is responsibility. Legal AI cannot take responsibility for the outcome of a client’s case. Unless insurance products are developed that can assume liability for every decision made by AI systems — something no insurance company would realistically be willing to provide — complete replacement remains impossible. (Perhaps autonomous vehicle insurance may one day offer a comparable example as self-driving technology matures.)

A similar example can be found in commercial aviation. Modern passenger aircraft are already highly automated, yet two human pilots remain in the cockpit because there are virtually unlimited abnormal situations that can arise — bird strikes, severe weather conditions, sensor malfunctions — and because, in the event of an accident, someone must ultimately bear responsibility.

Even in a world where legal AI becomes highly advanced, there will always need to be someone capable of asking the critical questions. That person will inevitably be a lawyer. Likewise, the final individual responsible for litigation strategy, legal advice, and client outcomes must also remain a human attorney. Viewed from this perspective, the direction lawyers should take in the AI era becomes quite clear.

As someone who uses AI frequently, I recently asked one of the world’s most popular AI systems a simple question: “Will lawyers disappear in the age of AI?” Its answer largely aligned with my own perspective, but the conclusion stood out most clearly.

“AI will not replace lawyers. It will replace lawyers who do not use AI.”