Enrico SchaeferFouning Attorney, Litigator and Ousdie Counsel - IP, Tech, TRAVERSE LEGAL, PLC · Founding Partner @ TRAVERSE LEGAL, PLC | AI, Blockchain, Social Media, Internet

Will AI put lawyers out of business? #nextgenai #law #ai #legaltech #legaltrends #lawai #legal

24 Sept 2025 · 3 min

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2:58

In this monologue, Enrico Schaefer challenges the common narrative that AI will eliminate lawyers and law firms. Drawing on three years of intensive AI tool usage—especially high‑level prompting of ChatGPT—he outlines three concrete effects he has witnessed in his own practice: (1) existing clients are spending significantly more on legal services, often doubling or tripling their annual budgets, because AI exposes them to previously unknown risks and nuances; (2) new client acquisition has accelerated, with a robust pipeline of prospects who, after interacting with ChatGPT, are prompted to seek attorney counsel; and (3) the firm can now expand into practice areas lacking prior deep expertise, leveraging AI‑generated compliance answers to build new service offerings. Schaefer attributes these outcomes to clients’ direct interaction with ChatGPT, market expansion driven by AI‑focused startups, and the firm’s ability to augment its knowledge base via AI. He concludes by inviting other lawyers to share their on‑the‑ground experiences regarding client usage, business growth, and expertise expansion.

Chapters

legal profession is going to be coming to an end. AI is going to crush the legal profession, lawyers, and law firms. That's what we've been told, right? But that's not what's been happening on the ground in my legal practice. I've been a power user of AI tools for almost 3 years now, and by using ChatGPT at really high levels and understanding the skills and the mindset and the strategies necessary in order to get great Great output from them. Here is what's happened in my legal practice. Number 1, the clients that I currently have are coming back for more legal services than they were before. So, let's say a client had a budget of $20,000 a year. They're now spending $40,000 a year or $60,000 a year on legal. Number 2, new clients are finding us at a record pace. And so we have a great pipeline of new prospects coming through the door, and we're converting those at a much higher rate. 3, we are also seeing that we can expand our legal services into areas that we may not have had the sufficient expertise or foundation previously, but now with ChatGPT and other tools, we can get answers to compliance issues so quickly, for instance, that we're able to then build legal services on top of that knowledge, on top of that expertise, which is provided by the AI tools. So, why these 3 different effects? One, our current clients are using ChatGPT. I can see it in the information and the questions that they ask, and what they're learning is that they don't know. The answers to many of these questions. ChatGPT is telling them about the risks and the nuances of legal problems and issues they never thought about before. So, ChatGPT is expanding their knowledge of the importance of legal services. 2, with prospective clients, you've got all these startups and you've got all these, you know, these new AI companies and brick-and-mortar companies expanding their businesses using AI. And so, what we're seeing is a market expansion and those Prospects are encountering the same thing with ChatGPT. It's telling them contact an attorney. And then 3, by expanding your expertise, your knowledge base using these ChatGPT tools, you are able to actually provide higher-level, beyond competent legal services across a broader swath of legal issues. So I want to know, what are you seeing on the ground as a lawyer? Are your clients using you more? Is your business expanding? Is your level of expertise expanded? Leave it in the comments.