By Matthew Leopold, Head of Brand, PR and Content Marketing at Legal Futures Associate LexisNexis [1]
For decades, legal training followed a familiar pattern. Junior lawyers learned by doing the work no one else particularly wanted to do. Hours of research, endless drafting and tedious document review. It wasn’t glamorous, but those early experiences helped build judgement, confidence and practical experience. We are only a few years into the AI shift, and already the profession is changing.
Recent LexisNexis research [2] found that 65% of lawyers are now using paid legal AI tools, with many saying it helps them work faster. At the same time, 72% are concerned that junior lawyers using AI may struggle to develop deeper legal reasoning, judgement and argumentation. A further 69% worry about verification and source-checking skills.
If AI is taking on the work junior lawyers once learned from, how do we make sure they still develop the judgement clients expect?
That was the discussion at the centre of our recent webinar, The mentorship gap: How AI is reshaping legal training, supervision and judgment. I chaired a discussion with Emma Danks, Partner and Head of UK Corporate at Winston Taylor, and Alessandro (Alex) Galtieri, Deputy General Counsel at Colt Technology Services. Although the conversation began with AI, it quickly became a discussion about leadership.
Perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong question
Alex challenged two long-held assumptions. First, that repetitive work was ever the thing that created great lawyers. The biggest lessons rarely came from another due diligence review. They came from conversations with senior lawyers who explained why something mattered and shared context from previous matters.
Second, he questioned the idea that junior lawyers learn simply by being around experienced colleagues. Real learning comes when senior lawyers explain their reasoning, share context and encourage questions. AI may change how lawyers learn, but it doesn’t reduce the importance of those conversations. If anything, it makes them more valuable.
Emma made the point that legal training has always changed with technology. She recalled earlier shifts, from document comparison tools to cross-referencing, which changed the work junior lawyers were asked to do. She argued that firms need to be more deliberate about how junior lawyers move from repetitive tasks into work that builds judgement, critical thinking and AI literacy. The early years may still involve hard graft, but the purpose of that work needs to be clearer.
Why mentoring now matters even more
If junior lawyers are learning differently, their leaders need to lead differently. Emma described how reviewing work now extends beyond the final document. That subtle shift may prove to be one of the most significant changes to legal supervision. Supervisors are no longer just reviewing legal work. They’re increasingly reviewing how that work was produced. For Emma, the goal isn’t to replace traditional legal skills with AI literacy. It’s to develop both together. This means senior lawyers need to understand how AI has been used, what sources were checked and whether the lawyer understands the reasoning behind the answer.
Alex added a critical point. AI should be challenged, not accepted at face value. Its greatest value may come from using it as a sparring partner. Use it to test ideas, to critique reasoning or to force an argument with the response rather than simply receive it. The discussion suggested that AI could become more than a productivity tool. Used thoughtfully, AI may become another way of developing judgement rather than simply producing answers.
What clients will pay for
As AI reduces the time spent on routine work, clients place even greater value on commercial judgement, practical advice and strong relationships. Alex put it perfectly: “The partners worth their weight in gold are not the ones giving me a legal answer, but the ones effectively giving me a business solution”.
Alex raised an interesting thought. Junior lawyers may increasingly find themselves managing several AI agents at once: one for research, one to check the research, one to prepare a first draft and another to adjust the answer for the intended audience.
So, they may need to develop management skills much earlier than previous generations, even before they begin managing people. Managing AI tools will still require judgement. It will need the lawyer to know when an answer doesn’t feel right, when to ask another question and how the legal advice affects commercial decisions.
Emma observed: “We want this career to be meaningful… and enable everybody to develop the judgement and the expertise rather than just the way in which you manipulate an AI tool”.
Closing the mentorship gap
Wonderfully, nobody suggested returning to old ways of working and learning. Alex encouraged legal leaders to have the conversation openly with junior lawyers, admit that nobody has all the answers and build new approaches in shorter learning cycles. The people closest to the work need to help shape how AI is used.
Emma spoke about the value of reverse mentoring, recognising that junior lawyers often have practical experience of AI that senior colleagues are still building. Good mentoring needs to be more collaborative.
Technology has always changed how lawyers work. Now it is changing how lawyers are developed. AI may become an exceptional researcher. It may draft faster than any trainee and review documents at remarkable speed. Even then, it cannot replace the conversations that help a junior lawyer understand why a difficult judgement call mattered, or explain the subtle commercial context behind a client’s decision.
AI may eventually produce a better first draft than any junior lawyer. It will still take an experienced lawyer to explain why the second draft is better.