Converging AI and Human Roles

Role · Legal & Government

LawyersSOC 23-1011.00

Lawyers advise and represent clients in legal matters, in the definition of O*NET, the US Labor Department’s occupational database (SOC 23-1011.00). O*NET 31.0 lists 22 tasks for the role, from interpreting laws, rulings and regulations for individuals and businesses, to preparing and reviewing legal documents, negotiating agreements and representing clients in court.1 Bureau of Labor Statistics figures shown on O*NET count 863,700 lawyers in the US in 2025, at a median wage of $76.76 an hour or $159,670 a year, with employment projected to grow faster than average (5% to 6%) from 2025 to 2035 and 28,700 projected job openings.1

AI reaches the job mainly through platforms that firms roll out to their own lawyers, covered in AI legal research and lawyers: what the court records show and in the comparison of seven legal AI platforms. Allen & Overy announced an exclusive launch partnership with Harvey in February 2023 and, with Microsoft and Harvey, the ContractMatrix contract tool for its lawyers in December 2023;23 Borden Ladner Gervais said in December 2025 that it had adopted CoCounsel firmwide for research, drafting and document analysis;4 Willkie Farr & Gallagher announced a firmwide rollout of LexisNexis Protégé in March 2026;5 Husch Blackwell announced firmwide use of Legora the same month;6 and Nelson Mullins announced Harvey across all practices in August 2026.7 These are firms’ own announcements of rollout, not measurements of how much of a lawyer’s work the tools do, and they keep a lawyer responsible for the output.

The failures are on record too. In Mata v. Avianca a federal court sanctioned lawyers in June 2023 for a brief containing cases a chatbot had invented,8 and the Federal Trade Commission’s final order against DoNotPay in 2025 prohibits its deceptive “AI lawyer” claims.9 A Stanford evaluation of 2024 versions found two leading legal research tools each hallucinated between 17% and 33% of the time.10 Where a platform’s own page is the only source, as for Luminance’s contract negotiation, we grade it a vendor claim.11 MetaRoles’ scorecard counts 0 of the 7 core tasks it grades as done by AI alone: every in-production case keeps a lawyer reviewing the output.

Illustration: Lawyers, the role whose research, drafting and review tasks firms now run AI platforms for, under a lawyer’s review.

Key facts

O*NET-SOC code23-1011.00 Lawyers1
O*NET tasks22 in O*NET 31.01
US employment, 2025863,700 (BLS, via O*NET)1
Median wage, 2025$76.76 an hour; $159,670 a year (BLS, via O*NET)1
Projected growth, 2025–2035Faster than average (5% to 6%), with 28,700 projected job openings (BLS, via O*NET)1
Court sanction on record$5,000 imposed in Mata v. Avianca (S.D.N.Y., June 22, 2023)8

AI use cases

As of

AI use cases for Lawyers, as of 2026-10-26
Task AI system Organisation Evidence grade Latest source Source
Interpret laws and regulations and analyze contracts for clients Harvey Allen & Overy (now A&O Shearman) In production 2023-02 2
Draft and review contracts using a bank of precedents ContractMatrix (with Microsoft and Harvey) Allen & Overy (now A&O Shearman) In production 2023-12 3
Research, draft and analyze documents across the firm CoCounsel (Thomson Reuters) Borden Ladner Gervais In production 2025-12 4
Draft documents, summarize files and research LexisNexis Protégé Willkie Farr & Gallagher In production 2026-03 5
Research and review as an agent across the firm Legora Husch Blackwell In production 2026-03 6
Research, drafting and review across all practice groups Harvey Nelson Mullins In production 2026-08 7
Draft a court brief (cases invented; sanctioned) ChatGPT Lawyers in Mata v. Avianca, S.D.N.Y. In production 2023-06 8
Negotiate contracts Luminance contract negotiation Luminance product page (vendor) Vendor claim 2026-10 11
Advise clients and represent them in court DoNotPay "robot lawyer" DoNotPay (FTC final order) Vendor claim 2025-02 9

Sorted by evidence grade, then by date. Production means a named firm or lawyer used the tool, as that firm’s own announcement or a court record states; none of the rows measures the share of the work done by AI. The ChatGPT row is a documented misuse that ended in a sanction. Vendor-claim rows rest on the vendor’s page or a regulator’s finding that a claim was deceptive. How the grades work.

Appears in

Sources

  1. O*NET OnLine (O*NET 31.0; wages and employment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics), 23-1011.00 Lawyers, retrieved 2026-10-26.
  2. A&O Shearman (originally Allen & Overy), A&O announces exclusive launch partnership with Harvey, February 15, 2023.
  3. A&O Shearman (originally Allen & Overy), A&O launches SaaS partnership with Microsoft and Harvey, December 21, 2023.
  4. Borden Ladner Gervais, BLG expands long-standing Thomson Reuters partnership with firmwide rollout of CoCounsel, December 3, 2025.
  5. Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Willkie announces strategic collaboration with LexisNexis and firmwide rollout of Protégé, March 16, 2026.
  6. Husch Blackwell, Husch Blackwell continues tech expansion and firmwide use of AI with rollout of Legora, March 3, 2026.
  7. Nelson Mullins, Nelson Mullins Deploys Harvey Across All Practices, August 24, 2026.
  8. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Mata v. Avianca, Inc., No. 22-cv-1461, Opinion and Order on Sanctions (ECF 54), June 22, 2023 (copy via CourtListener).
  9. Federal Trade Commission, FTC Finalizes Order with DoNotPay That Prohibits Deceptive ‘AI Lawyer’ Claims, Imposes Monetary Relief, and Requires Notice to Past Subscribers, February 11, 2025.
  10. Magesh, Surani, Dahl, Suzgun, Manning and Ho, Hallucination-Free? Assessing the Reliability of Leading AI Legal Research Tools, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 22:216–242, 2025.
  11. Luminance, AI Contract Negotiation (product page, vendor), retrieved 2026-10-13.