Junior lawyers are feeling the impacts of AI on their work as it increasingly handles drafting, due diligence and document review that once formed the backbone of early-career training.
A Reddit thread exposes a growing divide between lawyers who see AI as an existential threat to junior roles and those who view it as just another productivity tool.
For decades, Big Law has relied on the idea that junior lawyers learn by doing the work that eventually prepares them for more senior roles.
Now, as AI rapidly takes over much of that entry-level work, lawyers are beginning to question what happens when the bottom rung of the ladder starts to disappear.
A Reddit thread started by a second-year associate has sparked a wider debate over exactly that question.
Posting on the r/BigLaw forum, the associate said large language models were now handling so much drafting, due diligence and document review that they were “eating a large chunk of work” and making the job more of a “rubber stamping” exercise.
They wrote that they struggled to see what work would be left for junior lawyers.
"It's really compressing tasks that previously would have taken quite some time," they wrote. "And seemingly commoditising my skill."
While acknowledging that senior lawyers bring commercial judgment AI cannot yet replicate, the associate questioned what value junior lawyers would add as technology continues to improve.
The post attracted hundreds of comments, exposing an increasingly open debate over how AI is reshaping life inside large law firms.
'The ladder is burning'
One commenter summed up the concern in a single sentence: ”You're in, and the ladder is burning behind you."
Another commenter, identifying themselves as a senior associate, argued the shift may happen even faster than many lawyers expect.
"Honestly, I would be surprised if it takes two years," they wrote. "AI has started to do most things better than our first years across the board."
"If you're senior and know how deal flows work, you will probably be fine, but if you're just grinding hours…”
The lawyer added that if AI improves by another 10-20%, much of the traditional model where junior associates review documents before passing work up the chain could disappear.
Others were even more blunt. “We’re all cooked," one commenter wrote.
The case for optimism
Several argued that today's AI tools remain unreliable enough that junior lawyers still play an essential role reviewing outputs and spotting errors.
One commenter said their firm was still struggling to build dependable AI workflows, noting that tools such as Harvey and Legora frequently fell short on seemingly straightforward document tasks that would be easy for humans.
They recalled a colleague asking AI to remove a particular category of footnotes from a document, only for both platforms to "fail miserably".
Rather than replacing junior lawyers, they argued AI was changing the nature of the work.
"AI speeds up some rote work meaning that we now need to spend more time actually thinking about what to do," they wrote.
They also noted another risk: “I do think AI will get better, but it will also get more expensive, and it will be interesting to see how the firms deal with that."
Others compared the technology to Excel, arguing it would expand individual productivity rather than eliminate the profession altogether.
"A single human can only handle so much AI output and agent management. Think about how Excel significantly expanded how many financiers and accountants there were,” one commenter wrote.
Join 10,000+ City law professionals who start their day with our newsletter.
The essential read for commercially aware lawyers.
