AI Flywheel and Unimaginable Synergies
How they will affect the practice of law
With Google’s AI product, NotebookLM, I used the “discover” method of finding appropriate information on an issue I was interested in. That issue was the intersection of knowledge management and artificial intelligence as applied to the practice of law. From a much larger analysis of the ten articles produced by the search, what follows is a single, I believe highly impactful, aspect of the overall analysis. Following the paragraphs below I have listed the URLs for each of the ten articles used for the evaluation.
These sources indicate that the "AI Flywheel and Unimaginable Synergies" represent a profound impact of artificial intelligence that extends beyond merely enhancing lawyer efficiency to fundamentally altering the demand for legal services and the very structure of the legal profession.
Here's how these sources describe this concept and its broader implications:
Impact on the Need for Legal Services: The most significant aspect of these synergies is their potential to reduce the underlying need for many legal services at the most elementary level. This is achieved through AI's ability to integrate legal considerations into larger decision-making processes, even without explicit requests from users.
Universal Legal Literacy and Problem Mitigation:
AI can make legal literacy practically universal by providing reliable, free legal advice for most disputes, planning, and advocacy needs, making it instantly available across all socioeconomic strata.
The combined advancements across material, biological, and data sciences, enabled by AI, will lead to the mitigation of "myriad risks, misunderstandings, disputes, and dangers," thereby reducing the number of problems that require legal services in the first place.
Rebalancing Legal Structures and Economics: This fundamental shift means that the entire pace of legal problem-solving will be "refactored across the board". The core economics that underpin current legal structures, which are based on historical assumptions about the limits of human time and analytical capabilities, will be comprehensively rebalanced.
Evolution of Legal Expertise:
Instead of just increasing efficiency, the "synergies" will lead to a point where "unimaginably holistic and sophisticated advocacy will be executed by AI-enabled, human superlawyers". These machines will consider all practice areas, facts, and real-time developments simultaneously, potentially outperforming human lawyers not using AI due to the sheer scope of context.
While human lawyers will still guide the process, the focus will shift from traditional content production to evaluative judgment, critical selectivity, and academic discernment. Lawyers' value will lie in knowing where liabilities hide, understanding client risk appetite, and identifying what needs bespoke attention.
The sources suggest that human advice will become significantly more valuable, even as the overall quantity of attorney hours is reduced.
Demystifying Complex Systems: As AI demystifies complex legal systems, "private ordering" will develop more efficient structures to match, leading to a rebuilding of the "very pillars of the practice of law". This includes the evolution of rigid instruments like contracts into dynamic alternatives ("smart contracts") and the standardization of automated dispute resolution. Even courts could be radically enhanced by AI, with human judges ratifying competing model determinations in many cases.
The Future Legal Landscape: The legal industry is expected to be "reborn," becoming "much smaller and much better," with fewer roles for both "budget and premium lawyers". The winners will be the clients, and the lawyers who adapt by gaining a deep understanding of AI and reimagining their roles with humility will thrive. This requires lawyers to "shed your assumptions of which tasks are merely technical, and which tasks require real legal judgment," as these spheres are rapidly merging.
In essence, the "AI Flywheel & Synergies" suggest a future where AI not only automates existing legal tasks but also, through its broader societal impact, reduces the sheer volume of legal issues that arise, fundamentally transforming the demand for legal services and reshaping the legal profession from its foundations.
URLs for all 10 articles used
https://erbis.com/blog/9-trends-shaping-ai-automation-in-legal-tech-for-2025/
https://www.ncbar.org/2024/01/16/ai-and-km-two-great-tools-that-work-great-together/
https://www.insidepractice.com/ai-x-km-the-future-of-knowledge-management
https://www.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/0/documents/ethics/Generative-AI-Practical-Guidance.pdf
https://juro.com/learn/legal-automation#exit
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/overcoming-challenges-of-ai-in-law-firms-3023462/
https://insideainews.com/2025/05/02/report-contract-management-leads-ai-legal-transformation/
https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/what-counts-as-legal-knowledge-in-the-age-of-ai/