There's a window to get good at Al. It won't stay open.
Legal tech has been here before — and the lawyers who learned early came out way ahead.
In the early days of Westlaw and Lexis, computerized legal research was expensive. Only big firms could afford it.
But even those firms had to be careful. It was easy to run up a big bill and come back empty-handed. You couldn’t pass that cost to the client. The whole thing felt precarious.
Enter the West attorneys
Westlaw’s solution was to put attorneys on call — people who’d guide you through a search. They’d help you run it efficiently, steer you away from dead ends, and make sure you didn’t spend a fortune for nothing.
It worked. Lawyers felt more comfortable using Westlaw because they had a guide. That guidance became part of the expensive package West sold to big firms that could afford it.
AI today is different — but the parallel holds
Today’s AI tools are subsidized. That means almost any lawyer, at any size firm, can access them.
Big firms have tools like Harvey that are marketed as more powerful. But they’re running on the same underlying models everyone else uses. The real differentiator isn’t the tool. It’s how well you use it.
Right now, the cost of experimenting is low. But that won’t last. As these models get more capable — and as the companies building them start recouping their investment, costs will rise. Efficiency will matter more. And the lawyers who’ve already built good instincts will have a real edge.
The instinct gap
Those lawyers will be like the West attorneys. They’ll know how to frame a question, how to avoid wasted effort, and how to get to a useful answer without burning unnecessary time or money.
Will AI companies step in and provide that kind of guidance? Maybe. But I doubt it scales. The technology is moving too fast, and there aren’t enough people who’ve truly developed good AI instincts to fill that role.
The window is open now
This is the moment to build the skill — while things are still relatively cheap, and while the models are still small enough to get your head around.
The lawyers who take this period seriously will look like the Westlaw lawyers who got good early. They won’t just be more efficient. They’ll be the ones others turn to.
That’s a good place to be.
;-)
Ernie
P.S. Building that skill is exactly what the Inner Circle is for — a community of solo and small-firm lawyers learning AI together, not on their own.
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https://ernietheattorney.net/