AI: May the force be with you (Andrew Goddard KC and Laura Hussey for Counsel Magazine)

In this article, Andrew Goddard KC and Laura Hussey consider the new skills barristers will need to become the legal superstars of the future.

Civil litigation is an ever-evolving creature, but, until recently, the progressive and procedural changes were motivated by what might be termed internal forces. That is to say, they sprang from a review of the courts’ own procedures, by both lawyers and judges, concerned to see if the existing procedures required updating to improve efficiency without adversely affecting the quality of the litigation process, and, indeed, with the intention of improving it. Examples which spring to mind include written openings, witness statements and lists of issues served in advance of a trial. All of which, when they were first proposed seemed revolutionary, but which we now take for granted.

We are currently at the dawn of the next revolutionary change in civil litigation. However, unlike its predecessors, this change comes from an external force which has the capacity to alter the litigation process and legal landscape more radically than we may be able to imagine. That external force can be summed up by two letters: AI.

Click here to read the full article, first published in Counsel on 15th January 2024.