Path Found
Path Found is the podcast for anyone who’s ever asked, “What now?”
This show explores the real, messy, and inspiring journeys people take to find fulfilling work—and themselves. From pivots and side hustles to mentorship and major career changes, Path Found reveals what college never taught and counselors never said.
Path Found
The Judgement Stays Human
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Chris Davis didn't know what he wanted at eighteen, and he still didn't know at twenty-one, a fact he admitted out loud, in an interview, to a partner at a law firm. That honesty got him gently shown the door and pointed him toward a year of service work in San Francisco that he now credits with shaping his values.
Three decades later, he runs his own employment law firm, and he's watching the entry rungs of his profession change under him. In this AI & Careers conversation, Chris walks through what his firm has actually automated in a thousand-client mass arbitration, where the confidentiality lines are, why he still hired a first-year associate this year, and why the parts of lawyering that matter most — persuasion, judgment, telling a client the truth they don't want — aren't going anywhere. Part of our AI & Careers series.
🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast”
Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities.
📅 New episodes drop every Thursday.
👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast
★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route.
Get Involved:
🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org
💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from!
📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast
Clients come to us and they want, especially now in the age of AI, they they they center all our facts and they want to know like what their damages are and how what their settlement amounts are gonna be. And then they come to us with these printouts from AI and say, look, my robot is telling me this is what I can get, and you have to sort of explain to them that that's not how this works.
SPEAKER_00Hi everyone, and welcome to Pathbound, the podcast about the real, messy, unexpected journeys that lead us to the work we love. I'm Monica Argandonia, and every week I talk with someone whose story proves there's no single right way to build a meaningful life. Somewhere around age 21, Chris Davis sat down for a paralegal interview at a law firm and told the partner across the table that he wasn't sure he wanted the job. He wasn't being strategic. He just didn't know yet. She closed the door, and what happened next turned out to be one of those small moments that quietly redirects a life. Today, Chris is the founding partner of Working Solutions Law Firm, an employment law practice with offices in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and a fourth opening in Connecticut. And he represents employees in discrimination cases, wage in our class actions and whistleblower claims. As he puts it, the good guys wherever they are. But between that interview and that firm, there was a year of service work in San Francisco on a stipend, a stint in a Senate mailroom, law school at night, and a run as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. This conversation is part of our AI and career series. And Chris brought something we haven't heard yet on the show. A lawyer whose firm is running a thousand client arbitration with AI drafting documents, who will also tell you flatly that nothing is going to sign the pleading for him. We talk about ethical pressures on young associates, the client conversation nobody wants to have, what happens to first-year jobs when the first year work gets automated, and what he'd say now to the 21-year-old who didn't have an answer. This is pathfound. So, Chris, I'm happy to see you today and talk with you. So we're just gonna jump right in. And you know, I always kind of want a background of of my guests. And so I'm gonna start when you were 18. What did you think you'd be doing right now when you were 18?
SPEAKER_01Jeez, when I was 18, my goodness, I guess what is that like a senior high school, freshman year of college? I really didn't have a fair sense for what I was gonna do. I only knew what I I had certain interests. I liked to write, I liked music, I liked my English classes, thought I might be a journalist. I was also interested in pub certain public service activities, and over time developed more of an interest in community-based organizing and service work, which I did in San Francisco after college. But at the time, like 18, I don't know. I was pretty content to hang out with my friends and not worry too much about the next couple of years. I sort of was like content to like let the world, you know, unfold before me, like and and maybe like take every experience as sort of a new thing that I could absorb. You know, I was a young man and I I also feel like I did a lot of like sort of fun things when I was at that age. And, you know, I traveled as much as I could and I lived on a f shoestring. I didn't have a lot of money. And so it was definitely like a, you know, it was sort of like I would look at I remember going to an interview. Actually, it's a good story. I was going into my senior year of college, but so I don't know, maybe I was 21. And they I went for a paralegal position. I wasn't sure I wanted to go into the field of law, but I was thinking about it. And at that point, I had applied for a volunteer program called the Jesuit Volunteer Court, which was like a great experience. I'm so glad I did it. That was the first thing I did after college. But she asked it, the partner who was interviewing me was like, Well, why do you want to be a paralegal on a law firm? And I said, I don't know. And she looked at me like that is the wrong answer. But I had no understanding of why I wanted to be a paralegal. And I even said, I'm not even really sure I want the job. It was very funny because I was being brutally honest. And she's like, What else are you looking at? And she kind of laughed and I told her I was wanted to go into the Jesuit volunteer corps. And she shut the door and she said, I did the Jesuit volunteer corps. And she's like, Trust me, you don't you don't want this job. Go do the Jesuit volunteer corps, which was both really supportive and kind, and also a very good way to like get rid of me as a terrible candidate for a paralegal position that I didn't even admitted I didn't even really know I wanted in any event. Yeah, that's it was sort of how things went. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00So so did you you did the volunteer corps?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What did you do?
SPEAKER_01I did a year of service work in San Francisco. I worked for an organization called the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. I'm not sure if it was a both a grassroots organization that did like sentencing advocacy for juvenile criminal justice defendants who were like potentially going to be processed through the adult system. And we would advocate that they be processed through the juvenile system. It was during a time, a very dangerous time in California. It was like during the three strikes period in California, mass incarceration. And I also wrote, I did like policy press releases, and like I did a report on incarceration rates among young African American men in California. It was staggering. You know, we and there was some impact. We were, you know, the the guy who ran it was this guy, Vinny Schiraldi. He actually really was the one who at this in this era of like there was it was just really racist and terrible. I mean, quite honestly. It's like a lot of the language centered on like super predator, you know, African American juvenile delinquents. And there was a lot of bias. I mean, there always has been historically a lot of bias in the criminal defenses. So it was sort of like overt, and there was a lot of like this public backlash against, you know, increase, a perceived increase in crime being committed by young, by young inner city CUs. You know, this guy, Vince Giraldi, like he had a different approach, a more community-based alternatives to incarceration for juvenile defendants. He really emphasized like community reintegration and community programming for juvenile justice defendants instead of like them being locked up for years and reason years in being processed in the adult system. This guy, Vincent Geraldi, had some success. And, you know, he eventually, like in DC, recidivism rates went down. I mean, the bottom line is that ultimately he he set out to sort of push back on the culture of mass incarceration back in the 90s. And this is the organization that I was working for, and it was still pretty new, and he was younger. And it was great. I was doing these policy reports and also going into court and representing as a non-lawyer at the sentencing level, like these juvenile justice defendants, for a guy who ended up having a pretty meaningful impact later on down the line. So it was kind of a cool opportunity. I lived in the mission district in San Francisco at a time when it was just starting to gentrify, but it was still largely like low-income Mexican-American immigrants. And, you know, we lived, I lived on a stipend, and we sort of had a lot of meetings about community and and we followed the sort of social justice principles of the Jesuits. It was a great introduction to adult life. It really like, I mean, not that I was the most mature guy in the world, but it helped to set my principles and values and sort of like it helped me think about the world. Like I got beyond. I was like, wow, there's a I just had a much broader perspective on race, class, and poverty, all those things. I was fortunate. It was a great, it was a great thing.
SPEAKER_00Is that when you decided you wanted to be a lawyer?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was that year when I decided I was I was more in invested in taking the I studied for the L set and also I thought I wanted to become a lawyer and potentially get into some sort of public service law. Then after, as you're aware, after that experience, I came back to Washington, DC. I worked on Capitol Hill. I did policy work for Senator Feinstein. And I mean, I I when I say I did policy work, I did not do policy work. I did administrative work, and then I had the lowest position possible, like legislative something correspondent, or what was it? It was like so. I was based back when there were, you know, literally like just answering letters and stuff like that. I worked in the mail room for a while. Went to law school at night, and then I transferred to the day program. And then I went to law school and I sort of I thought, hey, maybe I want to be a trial lawyer or a litigator. And I ended up coming to Manhattan to New York City. I got a job as a district assistant district attorney in Manhattan when I graduated. Yeah, I loved that job. And then life happened. Then I had kids, and that whole thing was crazy. And everything sort of shifted and changed. But yeah, so that was that's chapter one.
SPEAKER_00So what are you doing right now?
SPEAKER_01So what ended up happening was after a few years of, you know, I was married and had young kids. And I one I decided I needed to go into private practice so I can make some more income and afford to live in New York City and put my kids through college. And so for a few years I bounced around between different employment law firms. I got, I went into a plaintiff side employment law and some management side, but mostly plaintiff side employment law, working on behalf of employees and you know, in discrimination matters, wage and hour class of actions, whistleblower cases, you know, retaliation cases, any breach of contract, anything. It was great work. And over time, you know, I slowly developed different a different skill set, which was important. I had to like learn how to write and I needed more money. It was kind of a good way to transition to work that was sort of public interest interesting, but also and served a good com like a the common good, but also like afforded me the ability to like make enough money to pay my mortgage and put some money aside for college. In 2000, I started my own. I decided I kind of wanted to go off on my own and I started my own law firm. And yeah, I've been doing that ever since. I have my own employment law firm. It's called the Working Solutions Law Firm. We have offices in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and we're opening an office in Connecticut. And right now we have five lawyers and you know, probably about 10 support staff. So it's a small firm. And we do both management, plaintiff, and management side cases. As I like to say, we represent the good guys wherever they are. And yeah, we have a lot of really interesting cases. Now, right now we have like a mass arbitration against the large like delivery gig economy delivery drivers. And we have to do these settlement conference calls, and we've done over a thousand of them. I've really learned a lot about different areas of the law and how to practice in, you know, different areas of the law.
SPEAKER_00So, what part of of the legal work of being a lawyer surprised you the most? Something that they never told you in law school that you just had to learn on the job.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there is a huge, huge gap between like law school and the practice of law. And when I was going to law school, there weren't a lot of internship opportunity, not as many, but there's more now. But like, I mean, the first thing is that like like I took ethics and I used to think like none of these issues will come up and like, you know, ethical issues come up literally like every week, like in the practice of law. If you're a litigator, they come up all the time, and you have to sort of have a sense for like right and wrong and what when you know where the boundaries are, you have to know where the boundaries are because it's oftentimes there's a lot of pressure, like subtle pressure could be financial pressure, it could be the desire to please a client or something, and you have to be able to say no. And that can be very hard as a young associate. I had to do it a few times. I had a partner ask me to instruct a witness to perjure herself. I mean, literally, it was like, this is just what she said, this is just what we do. I said no, I had to get another partner involved, and it's less dramatic on a day-to-day basis, like, but it does happen that, you know, a lot that you have to like exercise ethical judgment. You know, I was also just not prepared for some of the realities of the practice of law, which was that it was, I mean, law school was competitive, but like finding positions, I got good jobs, but it was like really hard to like land on my feet, especially in private practice, like transitioning to private practice, like and the almighty billable hour, like working long hours and knowing how to manage your lifestyle and manage yourself when you have these pressures. I mean, the best thing for me has been to be my own boss. I I love having my own firm. And like I sort of am able to run the practice the way I want and treat people the way I want. And sometimes I feel like my reaction to like my demeanor as a boss has is is impacted a lot. It has been impacted a lot by like some of the bad treatment I've received as an associate is like to be sort of more human and understanding. At the very least, I still hold people accountable, but to not be uh a jerk about it. One thing, like it's very easy in the practice of law to lose sense, to to develop this hyper focus either on money or status or something. I mean, it's surprising how strong that can grip you, and you can lose a sense, lose sense of yourself. At different points, I felt that for me it was more just like there was a period where I kind of got away from myself. And I would it was because I felt so much financial pressure to make sure that my family was safe and taken care of financially. And ultimately, like I I reached a point where it's like, man, I I've got to like reset and take some side time out for myself and be more like not just cons like nose to the grindstone thing, yeah. I have to pull in X, Y, and Z. At least when I was in law school, you you weren't, you were like self-management and work-life balance is not something that was like people were aware of back then. It's better now, I think, but the practice of law can be hard like that. You have to learn to set boundaries with other people, with you know, with like the the profession, with your clients. There's a lot of demand and like a demand that people demanding of your time, of your attention, and or they want you to do things that you can't do. So learning to set boundaries was a big part of my journey.
SPEAKER_00So what's the skill and do you think that the job actually rewards versus the one people assume it does?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, I guess like clients come to us and they want, especially now in the age of AI, where they feel like they they dig they enter all our facts and they want to know like what their damages are and how what their settlement amounts are gonna be. And then they come to us with these prinnounts from AI. Say, look, you know, my my robot is telling me this is what I can get. And you have to sort of explain to them, no, that's not how this works. But like people want results, clients want results, and they also have expectations that they come into these. Yeah, some of them like their expectations are low, and you have to be like, look, I, you know, I think we should shoot for more. Some of them, a lot of the most of the times they're way high. And, you know, they don't take into consideration the fact that any outcome is going to have to be adjusted for risk. And so a lot of my time is spent, you know, commu uh learning, like I've have to learn how to communicate with my clients and you know, speak with them in a way that like gets them to appreciate some of the risks on their case.
SPEAKER_00You know, what is it that makes you a good lawyer that people don't necessarily think about?
SPEAKER_01I think what they're they're looking for experience, like sort of a quick mind, like a and and a depth of understanding, like that you grasp the issues, like not only that you grasp the issues, but that you have a plan and you and you experience and you know how to do this. And honestly, people want to know that you have like a backbone as a lawyer, that you are gonna stand up for them. Clients never appreciate the fact that a big part of the role is to tell them they have a way more risk than they think. And that, you know, no, a lot of times we say, No, you don't even have a case. We can't even represent you. And people are like floored. That happens all the time. But and we have to like tell them, like, oh, you don't have a case. But sometimes I actually had a mediation this past week, you know, yeah, I could tell you this anonymously, but like it was a CEO for a large company and I was representative. He had a breach of contract claim that seemed pretty straightforward. There was no evidence that he had been a bad employee, they just couldn't afford him. So after they hired him, they realized they couldn't afford him anymore, and then they fired him and they didn't pay out his severance and his severance agreements. His severance, his employment contract said that he would he was guaranteed severance if he was fired, not for cause, but if he was fired for cause, he didn't get severance. So they said, You're fired for cause. And it was like cause was defined as like committing a crime, you know, not some fact dispute over whether or not someone was actually performing their job. So he had a pretty good case, but about halfway through, it turns out he had like downloaded a whole bunch of documents that he shouldn't have downloaded, like you know, proprietary data that he could give to a competitor, he didn't actually give it to a competitor. But about halfway through the mediation, I had to pull the mediator in and speak to this client and tell him, like, hey, you're just telling me now about this. You know, it it if they find out about it, it's going to impact your case. So we have to be a little more practical. And I told the mediators, like, come in and let's just talk about this. And I didn't know exactly what the mediator was going to say, but I knew the mediator had heard this a million times before because it happens a lot in these cases where all of a sudden you have a client who's like, Oh, I removed a few things, or I still have a laptop or a device with all this data. So then I didn't really know what the mediator was gonna say. The mediator said, like, look, this these dial, the fact that you kept these documents, even if they you didn't distribute them, that's gonna be a problem. And then my client said, Well, all right, it's gonna be a problem, but they don't know about it. And my response initially was like, Well, they're gonna find out. But then the mediator who had been speaking with them was like, they know about it. Like they already knew about it. And he just had been told not to tell us. And I think, you know, now that the count was out of the bag, he let us know. And, you know, it was at that point my client's eyes went like this, but you know, I I had I had to break it down for him. So the expectation is that as a lawyer, like I there's certain things I can't overcome. I did actually, we got a great outcome, all things considered. He got a, you know, result that was well into the six figures, and he's happy, but he was able to accept the fact there was a situation where it was like he could accept the fact that he had risk on his case because it was kind of dramatic the way it unfolded, which helped. But there's a lot of instances with people who just can't wrap their heads, a lot of clients who were like, look, this is what the case is worth, and this is what I should be getting. And it's they don't see the risk. It's true for a lot of people, you know, but you gotta like kind of break it down for them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So you brought up AI. So I'm gonna pivot to that. When did it start showing up in your practice?
SPEAKER_01About two years ago. And when it first showed up, I I didn't, my kids sort of talked about chat, and some younger clerks started using chat and stuff in my that's a big no-no. You at first, like nobody was using it. There was concerns about initially the concerns were weird. I mean, they were legitimate, but it was like the AI results were not reliable. I mean, that's true. They're not entirely, but they're it's like human results are not reliable. You just have to, you know, there was all this noise about like, all right, there's gonna be like hallucinations, and you know, AI is gonna be citing cases that don't exist, and you know, they're we're all gonna be chasing our tails with this AI thing and giving our clients bad advice. And so there was a lot of restrictions at law firms on use of AI. I mean, I thought it was kind of an interesting thing, but it seemed like something that just teenagers were using. And my really big issue is confidentiality, is that we can't have like our clerks and our interns and like stuffing all this data into their personal chat GPT accounts that's that gonna end up back in, you know, or like educating the chat GPT brain.
SPEAKER_00When do you actually start using it?
SPEAKER_01This year we started using it. Like I got, I mean, I got an enterprise account like a year and a half ago. I didn't really use it until it was been this year that we started using it a lot more. And in particular, on like I now have a mass arbitration. Basically, my AI is performing the functions of a lawyer right now. Like it will every week it adjusts a series of like smart sheets based on other like certain like call, like how many calls we've done, it updates everything, like all of my smart sheets to make sure that we didn't miss like uh col like attributing a phone call to a certain person. It changed it updates address information based on emails coming in. I mean, the most amazing thing it'll is that it's now drafting like simple documents, it'll draft statements of claim. Like these are all arbitrations and it that are going to be filed in different states, and it drafts those statements of claim. And it uploads them to our document database, and then we go in and proof them and send them out via DocuSign for signature. But it so I mean that's been incredible. Like, you know, that we have thousands of or over a thousand clients right now, and it's the efficiencies have been unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00The counting and the time and you know, doing all of that. I mean, that's gotta be huge. And those aren't necessarily tasks that anybody would miss, right?
SPEAKER_01Like even like two years ago, this automation was kind of clunky. It we'd have to draft all these templates and then you know, we could maybe have like map certain data into the templates by state, but like a hundred at a time. And it would take a lot, it would take a lot of time. But now AI creates the templates and then pulls the data from the sheets and then drafts the statement of claim without any of us having to coordinate anything. And then it uploads it to our document database so that my assistant, you know, can go in and proof it and then get it out by DocuSign. So it's, you know, and and it it helps. It reviews my email and it drafts emails to opposing counsel. I mean, on this case in particular, it's extremely useful. And as like cases are like I found that like I'm now creating projects for it. Like I'll create a project in I we use perplexity, not to, but which is like, you know, it's a multi-model browser. So it basically all of its searches run through Claude and Chatty. I mean, people tend to be, you know, happy with Claude. We have been, but like perplexity is it's it's very good for professionals and it has like a deep research function that's useful. And it's good for for like case citations. It it's also helping us, it's helping us with like simpler drafting. And we're adding a bunch of templates now so that it can template and draft things easier for pretty much any type of case that we might have. So it's it's making things easier. Everything like it replaces a lot of the functions of like the first year associate. Everything needs to be checked. And time consuming part is also just the script, like making sure that you build like different pieces of the automation correctly so it doesn't screw up and that your templates are solid. Sometimes they've got to go back in and sometimes links break and stuff, you've got to go back in and fix stuff. But yeah, now a component of legal work now is just supervising your AI and and checking the product. Yeah, that's the most important thing.
SPEAKER_00So you just said it kind of replaces what a first year associate would be doing. But if that's gone and that, you know, we that keeps happening, where how does a first year associate ever get trained?
SPEAKER_01We actually have a f first year associate to actually supervise the AI and also to use AI effectively. Like, you know, I'm spending a lot of my time as a partner now climbing banging around with AI, but really we'd like we want our associates to like be adept at using it as well. And nothing's gonna reply, like someone needs to exercise human judgment and like settle cases, go to trial, do depositions, stuff like that. So we're always gonna need lawyers, but there's areas of the practice of law that are going to be it's it's made us b more efficient in certain cases, but it also kind of has this way of like creating more work too, because you there's a different type of work that you have to be like your capacity expands, but you also have to attend to all the component pieces of like the the like like the functions that you built through AI, the scripts really. Like you build these scripts and it's it's the running automation and checking your emails, checking your data, checking your documents, but like you have to make sure that it's doing it correctly and you have to adjust to the scripts. So in every couple of weeks, there's something new like that needs to change on a case. So it's like sitting down with a meeting with an associate every week or two weeks, and it takes time, whereas you could just have the associate sort of take over the work of the AI of of supervising the AI and managing some of these bigger projects. So, either way, there's going to be work available for young lawyers, and nothing will really replace the individual judgment and decision making that lawyers have to. I mean, AI can assist and probably and still I'm not a believer that like AI's judgment is poor. Peist AI because we don't want to be obsolete. And the truth is that there's a lot of research that suggests that AI actually makes good decisions, possibly better than ours. But I found that what really matters is actually the integration or the relationship between AI and the user. And you have to be able to like educate AI so that it's effective. And if you don't do that effectively, it can make mistakes and it's not as there's like skills that you have to learn as a lawyer for like how to actually manage the AI. That's that's a big thing.
SPEAKER_00So it's almost like new roles that are gonna come up inside your firm or anywhere that didn't exist five years ago.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00So you mentioned confidentiality. How do you deal with that and AI?
SPEAKER_01We have a strict policy that anyone who does who uses AI, I mean, people there's limited access to AI, but anyone who uses AI has to use our enterprise account. And with enterprise accounts, like all of the data and documents that you upload, they are walled off from the main algorithms of like the AI search engines and brains. And so, you know, in and our data and and documents that we upload to like educate it or, you know, for searches and for tasks, it stays within our enterprise universe and it's not and we also have like note-taking software, like we turn on for like teens calls and stuff so that it and it transcribes the calls and we do use it quite a bit, but we make sure that all of the notes and the data that we collect that it that all of that stays in-house and that it does, it is not distributed outside of our law firm. The big thing is like, is this data being used to like train the AI, which is a potentially a breach of confidentiality? And where you know, we have invested in software and you know, bought licenses that protect against that. Like just human error is is really the biggest, or just like we we've had a couple of calls where the AI note-taking has been on at under circumstances where it shouldn't be on, and we've had to fumble around and turn it off. Or, you know, there's always this concern that it's accidentally going to email, you know, our notes from an a session to the wrong person opponent or something like that. But I mean, we have protections in place. We have a lot of like deletion policies, purging to make sure that, you know, there's not just like AI data, like record AI recorded data and like the information, you know, AI recorded data by conversations with clients or confidential or documents or something like anything, any session that may have that data in it is time limited, you know, or protected by like some sort of barrier.
SPEAKER_00So if someone is interested in pursuing law or they're even starting law school, say this fall, what should they prepare for?
SPEAKER_01I think if you're entering law school now, like things are going to be changing very quickly on the ground. Like the practice of laws, and it's it's definitely people are saying it's harder to find jobs as lawyers. But I think you have to just be persistent and wait for this AI thing to shake out a little bit because I think the roles are changing and you know, the way in which we work with AI changing. I think if you're going to law school, I I don't know that law schools are really some of them, you know, the profession is slow to embrace AI, but there are those people out there who have. And and it's turning a little bit, but to to take classes or even just like continuing education classes or legal education classes or something, and learn the like good skills for how to use AI and ethics, take ethics classes on it. Like, what are the limitations of AI? Like what the ethical limitations, like confidentiality and diligence is a big issue. You can't just push a button and let AI draft something. I mean, you know, there's a lot of stories about like AI punching out inaccurate stuff, but you can't, you want to push a button and have AI draft something, but you've got to put eyes on it. And ultimately, as a lawyer, you're signing the pleading and affirming to your the court and and to your own client that you've you've been diligent in you know your legal representation and the representations in whatever you're signing are accurate. So you can't do that. You know, you you don't even have the ability to sign that thing if you haven't looked at it. It's like it you can't attest to your the things that you need to attest to in order to like satisfy your ethical obligations.
SPEAKER_00Law firms, you what you're saying, and it's gonna keep getting better. There is gonna be less lawyers, a need for less lawyers, right? Because you would be able to do the same amount of work with a smaller staff. Yes, of course, you still need people to review and do all those things, but and especially if you also look at paralegals or legal assistance. Do you actually see firms shrinking in size?
SPEAKER_01I don't know if I see firms shrinking. I don't I don't think they're growing. And I know that we once AI hit, yes, we had. I mean, we used to have at different points, I've had lawyers, and we've been able, like I've had long periods of time where we had two full-time associates, and now we have two part-time associates. And yeah, I mean, look, the practice of law is changing, but it's also evolving. You know, the I saw some statistics on which professions are gonna be impacted the most by AI, and healthcare is like the least healthcare professionals like nursing, stuff like that, because there's so much that involves certain skills that AI is not good at. The law legal profession is like in the middle. Like there's certain functions that AI will be able to handle and certain functions it won't be able to handle. AI is not going to be able to handle them more, like intuitive, creative aspects, or even the edge the ethical judgment. You can get advice and it, but at the end of the day, there's there needs to be a lawyer that's like a the flesh and bone lawyer that's making these decisions and protecting the client's confidentiality. And it's increased our capacity in certain ways. Like we're able to handle these like large arbitrations that are document heavy. But I'm not, you know, we we had we were thinking, uh, we're we don't at one point we're like, ah, I don't even know if we're gonna need associates, but we do, you know, like it's not necessarily the case that associates and paralegals are gonna be gone. They're not gonna, not for the like, and as AI expands and people's capacity for using AI expands, it's not like they're gonna be like, oh, I'm good. It's like you need someone else to help you figure out the AI, like and to draft all the scripts. This summer I had a lot of law clerks here or undergraduate students, and they did all these our AI templates. And at some point, at some point I have to run one of those templates, draft it, have a draft a motion, but I've got to like upload it, format it, like all the stuff I need to do, and I'll probably just give it to my associate.
SPEAKER_00So I and then I think this goes back to that question that I asked earlier about you know, what's the skill that this job actually rewards or that actually needs? And it's gonna be the skill that can't replace.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that's true.
SPEAKER_00Which would be what?
SPEAKER_01I mean, first a few different things, like client communication, that's huge. I mean, persuasion too, rhetoric, like being able to persuade people, you know, it that's not AI's thing, you know, like those conversations I was talking about before about telling clients that they don't have a case, like dealing with an angry client, unreasonable expectations, like, or even like making an art like taking a deposition, making an argument to a jury, like learning how to establish trust and exercising professional judgment. I don't, you know, and even like just just like making adjustments on the fly and and proofing documents and pulling together in real time like uh a data, it's still you need uh someone on the ground to like like finalize all of that stuff. It's not it makes the earlier steps like it makes that much easier. Yeah, but but there's still this like a lot of judgment and polishing and finalizing documents, like like the ultimate, like the things that you think of matter the most, you know, like persuasion, judgment, establishing trust, communication, client relationships, those type of things, like still still very much needed. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Looking back now, knowing what you know now, what would you go back and tell your 21-year-old self? What advice would you give your young self?
SPEAKER_01That's a good question. I mean, I don't have rubrets in life. Like I think there are periods where like early on as a young professional where I felt a little insecure and I I it was hard for me to grow up and and sort of accept all of this responsibility, but it it resulted in me just there was a few years where I was like very focused on my career. And, you know, I think it had an impact on some of my relationships, and it took a little while and some of my habits, and it took a little while to like straighten that out. And I think I, in particular, like like friendships and relationships outside of work have become much more important to me. Like much more important. My relationships with my kids, my ex- now ex-wife, marriage didn't survive. That gives you some sense for what I would tell the 21-year-old. I have a very good divorce, but you know, like I and I have good relationships with my kids, but I would probably tell them like it, like tell myself to like to wear life like a loose garment a little bit, like and to appreciate friendships and relationships more. I mean, gradually over time I've sort of lost that youthful insecurity and I focus on people and relationships more. I'm more present and I think to be more present and not so driven. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you so much, Chris. I appreciate this conversation.
SPEAKER_01Of course, it's been my pleasure, Micah.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for listening to Pathbound. If anything we talked about today connected with you or gave you a new perspective, we'd love it if you subscribe, left a review, or shared the episode with someone you care about. You can also find us on Instagram at PathBound Podcast. To explore more stories, resources, and ways to get involved, visit Keystoneetwork.org. This podcast is just one part of the journey at Keystone Network for helping young people and anyone figure it out as they go, build meaningful futures, one step at a time. A huge thank you to my podcast editor, David Strutt. You can find him on LinkedIn for helping bring these stories to life, and to Elizabeth Minor at Silvermine Creative for the beautiful artwork and web design. And if you're on your own path, navigating the unknown, making a pivot, or simply figuring it out as you go, just know you're not alone. The route may not be linear, but there's always a way forward. I'm Monica Argandonia, and I'll see you next time on Pathfound.