My first law firm billed clients $600 per hour for me to use my Harvard degree on data entry. Thank God AI is changing the industry

When I was 12 years old, I walked into the district attorney’s office of my Kansas hometown and asked for a job.

I was inspired by onscreen lawyers depicted as hardworking professionals fighting for the rights of others or strategizing the best way to pull off a multibillion transaction.

Despite the advice of everyone in the profession, I spent my entire adolescence and young adulthood preparing to become a lawyer.

I was ecstatic when I was accepted and then graduated from Harvard Law School.

I had spent more than a decade envisioning all that I’d do with my law degree.

My first task at a law firm was to manually ensure signature lines were the same length across 18 different documents set.

The firm billed the client over $600 an hour for me to use all of my schooling and education to accomplish this task.

It’s been commonly accepted that American corporations and individuals pay for young associates with prestigious credentials an alarmingly high billable hour to complete non-legal tasks.

That is no longer the case.

The legal profession I entered upon graduation is already dramatically different.

Whether the industry likes it or not, the introduction of artificial intelligence is reshaping the distribution of talent and availability of resources, which I ultimately think will be beneficial to lawyers and clients alike.

The use of AI in white-collar professions is still in its infancy.

Lawyers complain about hallucinations, mistakes, and the technology’s other shortcomings.

But despite its imperfections, AI is already transforming the way that most people practice law.