AI Is Changing Law—How Should GCs Prepare Junior Lawyers to Lead?

In my years of practicing law, I’ve seen the traditional path to becoming a great attorney start with the same humble beginnings: slogging through document review, redlining contracts and reviewing hundreds of contracts during an M&A due diligence review. It was never glamorous, but it was essential to learn about different contracts. This type of work trained junior lawyers to spot nuance, recognize patterns, and develop judgment, the kind of judgment that can’t be easily taught in law school classrooms.

Today, that path is changing.

AI tools are now capable of doing much of the entry-level work that once served as the foundation of a junior attorney’s training. Tools can summarize contracts in seconds, suggest redlines to agreements, and even generate first drafts of policy documents for employee handbooks. These are remarkable advancements that save time and money, increase consistency, and improve overall efficiency. But they also leave me uneasy.

How do general counsel grow the next generation of senior lawyers and trusted advisors if junior lawyers no longer spend time immersed in the building blocks of legal practice? Who are we preparing to lead when the routine work that once taught them to think like lawyers is now becoming more automated?

This isn’t just a training issue. It is a leadership pipeline issue.

What can general counsel and other senior attorneys do?

We need to start thinking about junior lawyers as future strategic thinkers. That means reshaping their training in ways that align with how the legal profession is evolving.

Here are five ways to do that:

1. Leverage AI for skill development: AI can be used in training. For instance, junior associates can use AI to conduct virtual negotiations with the AI providing real-time feedback on tone and strategy. AI drafting tools can suggest alternative clauses in an agreement, and a junior attorney can learn from AI tools the explanations behind those changes. AI can pose questions to the junior attorney about a client’s intent or pose hypotheticals, helping foster a deeper understanding of contract negotiations.

2. Teach them to critique AI output, not just use it: Junior lawyers (and their bosses) should not blindly rely on AI. We need to train them to validate, question, and improve AI-generated summaries, contracts, and analysis. They will learn faster by understanding what is missing or why a nuance was overlooked.

3. Move junior attorneys upstream: We should also bring junior attorneys to participate in strategy meetings, client calls, or deal planning sessions. Give them context. The earlier they hear how experienced lawyers think, the faster they will develop that skill themselves.

4. Shift focus to judgment, not volume: Encourage juniors to explore regulatory trends, ethical implications of tech adoption, or risk management strategies. Give them problems to solve, not just documents to process.

5. Be transparent: I know that junior and even mid-level attorneys feel anxious about AI taking their jobs. It’s up to general counsel to address this anxiety by being transparent and clearly outlining new development pathways. The last thing a general counsel wants is their employees resisting AI adoption. The best approach to training is including not only what skills are taught but also how these changes are communicated. General counsel need to explain to junior attorneys how new, AI-augmented roles are opportunities for growth and higher-value contribution.

6. Build emotional intelligence (EQ) and client relationship management skills: General counsel should also foster or build their junior attorney’s emotional intelligence. This includes building trust with colleagues or clients, demonstrating empathy, and creating genuine connections with clients, opposing counsel, and internal stakeholders. This cannot be replicated by AI.

As general counsel, we know we have to embrace AI. But we can do so without sacrificing the future of our profession by being intentional. Replacing routine legal work with technology does not eliminate the need for junior attorneys. It just changes what we need to teach them.

The future lawyer will be a strategic, ethical, AI-augmented advisor. General counsel who lead this evolution will not only enhance their department’s capabilities but also shape the future of the legal profession. The legal leaders of tomorrow will still come from today’s entry-level attorneys. That will only happen if general counsel train them with purpose, not just productivity in mind.