My high school trigonometry teacher was, by his own admission, “old school.” He didn’t allow us to use calculators. Ever. Instead, all decimals had to be divided by hand, all formulas known by memory, and all square roots worked out on paper. We were unlikely to walk around with calculators when we got older, he explained, and so we had to be able to work things out with only a pencil and our brain.

I am older now, and he turned out to be right—at least in a limited way. I don’t always walk around with a calculator on me. I walk around with two: one on my smartphone and one on my smartwatch. Add the laptop that is nearly always within reach and the various devices carried by my peers, and it is a rare moment when I am not within 5 feet of an abundance of calculating devices. I wish my teacher was still alive to see it.

As a law professor, I think a lot about my trigonometry class as I prepare to teach each semester. I am trying to prepare my student for the practice of law in the best ways I know how. But I worry that I, too, am making what I have deemed “the calculator mistake.”

The reality of law practice will likely be significantly different in 10 years. Will what I teach now be helpful and relevant to my students then? What does it mean to practice law well when generative artificial intelligence can already generate a mediocre legal brief, and online automated legal services can provide people with a basic will in seconds?

There are two ways to deal with this kind of uncertainty. The first is denial and hostility. Legal news outlets have been filled with articles in recent months about the problems with AI-generated legal briefs. Such briefs may contain fake citations. They miss important points. They lack nuance.

The obvious solution, when the problem is framed in this way, is to point lawyers away from using AI, impose strong sanctions on attorneys who misuse it, and redouble law school exam security and anti-plagiarism measures to ensure that law students are strongly disincentivized from using these new forms of technology. “Old school” law practice and legal teaching techniques, in this view, should continue to be the gold standard of our profession.

The problem, of course, is that technology gets better and does so at an increasingly (and sometimes alarmingly) rapid rate. No lawyer worth their salt would dare turn in an AI-generated legal brief now, given the issues listed above and the potential consequences. But we are naive to think that the technology won’t eventually overtake even the most gifted of legal writers.

That point may not be tomorrow; it may not be five years from now. But that time is coming, and when it does, denial and hostility won’t get us around the fact that it may no longer be in the best interests of our clients for a lawyer to write briefs on their own. Denial and hostility won’t help us deal with what, at that point, will be a serious existential threat to our profession.

The second way to deal with the uncertainty of emerging technology is to recognize that profound change is inevitable and then do the deeper, tougher and more philosophical work of discerning how humans can still be of value in a profession that, like nearly every other, will cede a great deal of ground to AI in the not-too-distant future. What will it mean to be a lawyer, a judge or a law professor in that world? What should it mean?

I am increasingly convinced that the answers to those questions are in so-called soft skills and critical thinking. I see a significant amount of evidence that AI will eventually best us at writing legal briefs. But I see little evidence that AI will be able to offer anything close to the kind of support, counseling and empathy that lawyers routinely offer clients that come to them for help.

I see a significant amount of evidence that AI will eventually be able to derive the elements of an obscure legal claim much more quickly than a lawyer could doing research on their own. I see no evidence that AI will be able to tell when a client is lying, when what a client identifies as their most significant legal issue is far from it, or when the best course of action in a case is to persuade a client to pursue something wholly different than what they initially wanted.

As I frequently tell my students, one of an attorney’s most important jobs is to protect clients from themselves. I am not convinced that AI will ever be able to replicate the human instinct and intuition that good lawyers cultivate.

We have tough years ahead of us in all professions, but denial and hostility to AI will not save us. Instead of attempting to hold back this tide of profound change with all our might—an effort that will certainly fail—we have to become comfortable with discomfort, with putting all our most cherished traditions and techniques up for review, and with redefining what it is that we as (human) attorneys can do well.

So what of my high school trigonometry class? Was it a waste? Of course not. My teacher was wrong about calculators, but he was right about many other things: the importance of trying multiple approaches to a problem, rather than giving up; the necessity of walking slowly and carefully through each step of a solution to avoid silly mistakes; and the conviction that a little chalk dust on your pants should be a source of pride, rather than embarrassment.

He was a good person trying his hardest to prepare us for life. I hope to follow in his footsteps as a teacher in that way, particularly when the path forward will require an abundance of the virtues that he so carefully taught.

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Tracy Hresko Pearl is professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She researches and writes in the areas of law and technology, criminal procedure and torts. Before becoming an academic, she was an associate at Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C., and a law clerk for judges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

Ari Kaplan recently spoke with Jamie Berry, the president of Evolver Legal Services, an e-discovery and litigation support services company.

They discussed how client service has changed with the emergence of generative artificial intelligence, the most common challenges that legal teams face in litigation, and the evolution of the practice of law.

Ari Kaplan: Tell us about your background and your role at Evolver Legal Services.

Jamie Berry: I got my start in e-discovery fresh out of law school in 2001. It was a temporary opportunity in what would later become DLA Piper’s litigation support group. We used summation to code and search medical records for a large class action matter. I became the firm’s litigation support manager and have served in various leadership roles at small and large ALSPs before becoming president of Evolver Legal Solutions, managing the entire business. It’s been a great ride.

Ari Kaplan: What distinguishes Evolver’s approach to e-discovery?

Jamie Berry: Evolver takes a novel approach to e-discovery and legal services in general. It has a Back to the Future style in which our focus and commitment are on creating a client-service-centric partnership, where we strive to drive our clients towards outcomes. In the process, we optimize speed, cost, accuracy and security to drive greater efficiencies. Our differentiator in a crowded marketplace is the wealth of expertise that our team brings to each case, coupled with the company’s white-glove concierge approach of listening to its clients and prioritizing collaboration.

Ari Kaplan: How has client service changed in an era of emerging generative AI?

Jamie Berry: AI has helped client service incorporate validation and collaboration into the engagement. It really makes each matter similar to a car with two steering wheels, where we are driving alongside our clients. They are now empowered to stop or redirect when necessary. While this can create unrealistic expectations for a silver bullet solution, it becomes an iterative process incorporating testing and confirmation to ensure accuracy, similar to the early days of analytics in e-discovery.

Ari Kaplan: What are the most common challenges your clients are facing in litigation?

Jamie Berry: The common challenge is doing more quickly with less, which has been confirmed for over 25 years in this industry. We are rapidly managing more data, new data types, additional security regulations and complex privacy concerns in an era of instant gratification and tighter timelines. We also seem to perpetually lack sufficient funding and human capital. So we must creatively develop solutions to address these needs by being innovative and appropriately deploying the right technology. You must be ready to fail fast, own those failures and pivot. You have to lead with client service and transparency to avoid any impression of using a mysterious black box approach.

Ari Kaplan: How has leadership in legal shifted?

Jamie Berry: The pandemic represented a turning point in leadership, particularly for legal. With a larger remote workforce, finding, maintaining and managing talent has been challenging. Professionals must complete more work quickly while balancing increased caregiver or child care responsibilities. There are also new disciplines to understand, with more professionals working in legal operations and procurement, who have a more influential role in the buying decision. Indeed, with all the M&A we’ve seen over the past few years, executives must speak a board’s language and be able to market a business, rather than market a service.

Ari Kaplan: What skills are most important for your team members today?

Jamie Berry: The soft skills of working with people, communicating effectively and demonstrating the highest levels of client service are crucial. It is vital to understand how to infuse technology into solutions that address the legal ramifications of a matter. Privacy and data security are also skills one must hone to succeed in this market. From a business development standpoint, being flexible and adapting your approach to the objectives of the procurement team is essential.

Ari Kaplan: How do you see the practice of law evolving?

Jamie Berry: More law firms are running like businesses, so lawyers must understand that they are not just service providers or legal experts. They are business owners and need to know how to run an effective and efficient practice, which can only exist with technology. In my class at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law, I focus on empowering students to become dynamic litigators and demystifying the use of legal technology to support their clients. Hopefully, we can change the paradigm in legal education to help students hone their practical skills, business acumen and tech awareness.

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Listen to the complete interview at Reinventing Professionals.

Ari Kaplan regularly interviews leaders in the legal industry and in the broader professional services community to share perspective, highlight transformative change and introduce new technology at his blog and on iTunes.

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This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.