Productivity gains, but at what cost?
AI may be making junior lawyers faster, but new findings suggest it could also be weakening the very skills the profession depends on.
According to LexisNexis’ Mentorship Gap report, which surveyed nearly 900 UK lawyers, more than half (58%) of respondents said AI tools help them produce work faster, rising to 65% among those using paid legal AI platforms. The technology has dramatically reduced the time juniors spend on research, drafting and document review, the bread and butter tasks that have traditionally defined the early years of a legal career and long served as an informal training ground for developing legal instincts.
But while the productivity gains are clear, so are the worries. A hefty 72% of respondents identified deep legal reasoning and argumentation as the biggest skills gap among junior lawyers, with 69% also pointing to weak verification and source-checking skills.
Interestingly, just 2% of those surveyed believe AI actually strengthens learning.
The fear is that skills traditionally developed over months, or even years, of hands-on legal research and analysis are being sidestepped by AI-powered shortcuts. For some juniors, this means moving more quickly into complex, higher-level work, accelerating development in areas such as technical knowledge and client exposure. However, the report warns this may also produce lawyers who can generate answers quickly but struggle to test them properly.
Many respondents also raised concerns that junior lawyers are becoming overly reliant on AI outputs without fully understanding how to verify them. Access to legal information may be easier than ever, but deciding what can be trusted, and why, remains a human skill.
Rather than calling for AI to be rolled back, lawyers instead point to the need for a rethink in how it is used and taught. Around 65% believe AI should be repositioned as a “thinking partner” rather than a shortcut. Framed this way, the report says AI becomes a tool for “challenge, iteration and validation”, and “not a replacement for legal reasoning”. Just over half (52%) also support structured verification exercises that require juniors to check AI-generated outputs against authoritative sources.
Mentorship is also seen as more important than ever. The report stress that “judgment, ethical awareness, and client-handling” are still developed through close contact with experienced lawyers, something tech alone cannot replicate.
