The speech that shocked 2,700 lawyers
Richard Susskind's closing speech at ClioCon was a "gut punch," said one attendee
I’ve seen Richard Susskind speak before, but his ClioCon closing speech was different.
Darker. More urgent. And absolutely shocking to the 2,700 lawyers in attendance (one lawyer I talked to called it a “gut-punch”).
What made it most unsettling is the gap between what Susskind predicted and where most lawyers actually are.
An Inner Circle member recently spoke at a workers’ compensation seminar and asked how many attorneys were using AI tools like ChatGPT in their practices.
Fewer than 5% raised their hands.
When he demonstrated ChatGPT analyzing medical records, jaws dropped: “I might as well have landed from a spaceship—they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.”
What Susskind said
Forget the usual “AI will make lawyers more efficient” talk.
Susskind delivered six competing theories about AI’s future—ranging from “it’s all hype” to “machines will replace humanity entirely.”
His conclusion? We need to plan now for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) to arrive between 2030 and 2035.
Not maybe. Not eventually. Plan for it.
The accelerated timeline changes everything
Five to ten years until machines match human intelligence across all cognitive tasks.
Think about that timeline against current reality: 95% of lawyers aren’t even using basic AI tools today.
Yet Susskind says we have maybe 5 years before AI matches human capability across all cognitive tasks.
As Susskind put it: “Any government, business leader, or lawyer planning for the future on the assumption that AI progress will stall is committing a grave dereliction of duty.”
The uncomfortable truth
The most sobering insight wasn’t about the technology. It was about market dynamics:
“The market will show no loyalty to our traditional methods if AI systems deliver the same outcomes faster, cheaper, and more conveniently.”
Think Uber vs. taxis. TurboTax vs. CPAs. DoorDash vs. ordering takeout from restaurants directly.
Consumers will have zero nostalgia for human service providers when machines work exponentially better.
As one Inner Circle member put it:
“Markets are efficient, and the legal industry is ripe for disruption. We are, at our core, word merchants—and AI excels at working with words.”
What this means for lawyers
The gap is staggering:
95% of lawyers aren’t using basic AI tools today
AGI could arrive in 5-10 years
Markets will ruthlessly favor whoever delivers better results
That leaves a narrow window for lawyers to adapt—or be left behind.
The choice is important
You can join the 95% who are ignoring this shift.
Or you can start using AI now to offload mundane tasks, overcome procrastination, cure writer’s block, and “practice law from your happy place.”
The lawyers who get this right won’t just survive the transition—they’ll dominate it.
Want to join lawyers who are taking this seriously? Check out my Inner Circle, where we’re actively discussing how to navigate these changes.
;-)
Ernie
P.S. If 95% of lawyers are still amazed by basic ChatGPT demos, imagine their shock when AGI arrives. Don’t be one of them.
About 20 years ago, I spoke at a State Bar of Texas seminar on blogging. At the time, I asked the audience members to raise their hands if they used blogs as a legal research tool. Out of an audience of at least 200 people, about a dozen raised their hands. Of course, many more lawyers now follow blogs to keep up with legal issues, but I sense that younger lawyers drive most of that increase. Most of the lawyers at that seminar in 2007 probably did not change. I think Susskind's comments about the legal profession and AI are spot on. Lawyers who fail to learn about AI will become obsolete, while lawyers who embrace AI will survive and likely thrive. Older lawyers who are willing to adapt can be in that latter group. But commitment to adaptation is necessary.