The impact of artificial intelligence and LegalTech on the legal profession: Risks and challenges

This essay examines the transformation of the legal profession caused by the proliferation of LegalTech and artificial intelligence primarily focusing on the erosion of the traditional lawyer’s monopoly. Drawing on comparative legal analysis of German and U.S. case law, the study investigates how LegalTech platforms challenge established doctrines of unauthorized practice of law across jurisdictions. The research identifies a fundamental tension between legal formalism and procedural simplification that has entered a new phase in the digital era. The findings demonstrate that conservative legal systems are experiencing rapid expansion of automated pre-trial legal consultation services, resulting in systematic deprofessionalization of legal services. Significantly, the driving forces behind this transformation are commercial IT entities that approach the legal market primarily as a profit center, undermining the core principles of the legal profession, i.e., independence and exclusivity. These principles traditionally underpin the profession’s dual function of providing qualified legal assistance while upholding the rule of law. The essay advances a theoretical framework for assessing the risks of standardizing legal services. These risks include degradation of service quality in

complex or atypical cases, ambiguity in liability allocation for algorithmic errors, and the gradual displacement of normative legal foundations as conflict resolution shifts from legislative bodies to IT corporate structures. Building on Luhmann’s systems theory, the analysis argues for preserving law’s procedural autonomy as an essential mechanism for social conflict resolution. The study concludes that while LegalTech integration offers significant benefits, it must occur within a robust regulatory framework that clearly delineates jurisdictional boundaries of acceptable deprofessionalization and establishes mechanisms for professional accountability. This regulatory approach is essential regardless of the technological capabilities offered by artificial intelligence systems and online dispute resolution platforms.

1. Blume, F. H., & Frier, B. W. (Eds.). (2016). The Codex of Justinian: A new annotated translation, with parallel Latin and Greek text. Cambridge University Press.

2. Engstrom, D. F. (Ed.) (2023). LegalTech and the future of civil justice. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009255301

3. Guillemard, S., Kerneis, S., & Menetrey, S. (2018). La vie formulaire — entre procédure judiciaire et dérive administrative du droit d’hier à aujourd’hui [Formulaic life — between judicial procedure and administrative abuse of law from yesterday to today]. International Journal of Procedural Law, 8(2), 319–342. https://doi.org/10.1163/30504856-00802013

4. Harper, R. F. (1904). The Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon: About 2250 B.C. University of Chicago Press.

5. Hazard, G. C., & Dondi, A. (2004). Legal ethics: A comparative study. Stanford University Press.

6. Janssen, A., & Vennmanns, T. J. (2021). The effects of technology on legal practice: From punch card to artificial intelligence? In L. A. DiMatteo, A. Janssen, P. Ortolani, F. de Elizalde, M. Cannarsa, & M. Durovic (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of lawyering in the digital age (pp. 38–56). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108936040.005

7. Katz, D. M. (2013). Quantitative legal prediction — or — how I learned to stop worrying and start preparing for the data-driven future of the legal services industry. Emory Law Journal, 62(4), 909–966.

8. Luban, D. (2003). Taking out the adversary: The assault on progressive public interest lawyers. California Law Review, 1(91), 209–246. https://doi.org/10.2307/3481386

9. Niklas, L. (1993). Das Recht der Gesellschaft [Law as a social system]. Suhrkamp Verlag.

10. Remus, D. A. (2017). Reconstructing professionalism. Georgia Law Review, 51(3), 807–877.

11. Rhode, D. L. (Ed.). (2000). Ethics in practice: Lawyers’ roles, responsibility and regulation. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195129618.001.0001

12. Spaulding, N. W. (2017). Due process without judicial process?: Antiadversarialism in American legal culture. Fordham Law Review, 5(85), 2249–2273.

13. Spaulding, N. W. (2023). Online dispute resolution and the end of adversarial justice. In D. F. Engstrom (Ed.), LegalTech and the future of civil justice (pp. 251–285). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009255301.015

14. Susskind, R., & Susskind, D. (2015). The future of the professions: How technology will transform the work of human experts. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198713395.001.0001

15. Vismann, C. (2000). Akten: Medientechnik und Recht [Files: Media technology and law]. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag.

16. Xu, X. (2023). Lawyers in Chinese culture. Archives de Philosophie du Droit, 64(1), 269–288. https://doi.org/10.3917/apd.641.0269