AI reshapes legal support work, but paralegals see opportunity

Legal support professionals will meet in Sacramento through the weekend -- and they will have a lot to talk about.

Artificial intelligence and other technological breakthroughs have transformed the day-to-day lives of legal secretaries and paralegals while blurring the lines between traditional roles within a law firm. But leaders in these fields say the job market is healthy.

"A lot of people were afraid of AI when it first came," said Donna Day, a practice assistant at Nixon Peabody LLP in San Francisco. "They're like, 'Oh my gosh, we're gonna lose our jobs.' Well, we have really found that that is not the case."

Day is president of Legal Professionals Inc., which represents legal secretaries, paralegals, and other legal support staff. The group is holding its 92nd annual conference from Thursday through Sunday, hosted by the Sacramento Legal Professionals Association.

Along with seminars on legal branding and dealing with insurance companies, AI will be on the agenda. On Friday afternoon, June Hunter will lead a session called "AI in Legal Practice." The technical enablement lead at DISCO, an AI-powered legal technology platform, said that her husband once said "paralegals are going to be non-existent in a few years" because of AI.

"There's this big misconception that AI will put us out of work," Hunter said. "I haven't seen that."

Rather, Hunter added, junior associates are often taking the brunt of any dislocation brought on by recent technology. Instead, many firms are taking up the slack with a combination of AI and experienced support staff.

"When an attorney comes out of law school, they know the theory of law, but don't know the practice of law," Hunter said. "That's an issue. Do you know who gets to train a lot of the new attorneys that come to firms? Legal secretaries and paralegals."

"The utilization of paralegals has been changing," said Kristine Custodio Suero, an educator, consultant, and podcaster. "This has probably been in the last decade. We have seen paralegals being used more in a capacity of advanced legal work."

California is stricter than many states at defining the work paralegals can and cannot do, Suero added. But that has not stopped experienced paralegals from taking on some "substantive" legal tasks under the supervision of an attorney, or from getting more involved in the operations and business side of firms.

She added that she regularly reposts paralegal jobs on her LinkedIn page as a service to her students. Suero said demand is high for people who can combine analytical and communication skills with a knowledge of new tools.

Hunter, who teaches aspiring paralegals as an adjunct instructor at several schools, said the role is now often a starting point. She often writes recommendations for her former paralegal students who decided after working for a few years that they wanted to apply to law schools -- and take on the debt that often comes with them.

She could have been describing the career of Hanson Bridgett LLP Associate Mark G. Griffin. He worked in a support role at the firm while attending law school at night. After graduation, he said, some of his classmates were "shocked" at what it was like to work as an attorney, but he knew exactly what to expect.

Griffin now also monitors employment trends as the chair of the Law Practice Management and Technology Section Executive Committee at the California Lawyers Association. He said he does not think AI is putting legal support professionals out of work. No matter how good the tools get, he said, they are far more effective in the hands of someone who understands courts and law firm workflow.

"I don't think it's actually replacing them," Griffin said. "It's assisting them, because a lot of them are already overworked."

Figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show a muddled employment future for the field, with a decline for legal secretaries and a rise for paralegals. But Hunter said experience is always in demand.

"The firms that still value legal secretaries, it's interesting because legal secretaries make a lot more money now because there's so few of them," she said.

Griffin said that he is seeing growth in hybrid roles, with a premium on people who can do the legal filing and other work often associated with legal secretaries but also bill clients as certified paralegals.

"I think a lot of times the hybrid role is actually driven by law firm economics," he said. "They want someone that they can build into paralegal capacity, but they can actually do the work of the legal secretary when it comes to filing and understanding the court system."

While much has been written about how AI is going to destroy job prospects for educated young people, Day said she is seeing something else. With many attorneys and other staff working hybrid schedules, she said, there is a need for someone in the office who is scanning documents, accepting packages, and sending mail. This allows them to learn the tools and workflow and later move into more senior roles.

"What we're finding is that we are able to encourage the younger generation," Day said. "It's a really good starting point."