MinterEllison Cuts Graduate Intake by Nearly One-Third Citing AI Workload Absorption, as Legal Sector Grapples with Junior Staffing Shift

MinterEllison, one of Australia's largest law firms, has cut its new law school graduate intake by nearly one-third, citing artificial intelligence as carrying out work traditionally performed by junior lawyers. The firm stated that it has chosen to invest more deeply in training a smaller number of lawyers rather than maintaining its previous graduate cohort size — a direct acknowledgment that generative AI tools are absorbing a portion of the entry-level legal workload. The move is among the most concrete workforce decisions yet taken by a major law firm in direct response to AI adoption, and it has immediate implications for how London-based and UK law firms are likely to manage their own trainee and NQ pipelines. While no UK firm has made an equivalent public announcement, the structural logic — that AI reduces the volume of routine junior work required — applies equally to City practices where document review, legal research, and first-draft drafting have historically been core trainee and NQ tasks. This development sits alongside data from Ironclad's 2026 State of AI in Legal report, which found that 92% of legal professionals are now using AI for legal work — up from 69% in 2025 — and that mounting performance pressure is accompanying widespread adoption. The report also found a growing view among legal professionals that AI is a net job creator rather than a job eliminator, though MinterEllison's graduate reduction sits in tension with that optimism. For firms deploying AI-enabled legal research tools, the experience of Holding Redlich — which has embedded ' Westlaw Advantage Australia with precision-prompting training and baked-in citation verification — illustrates the governance model emerging at the leading edge: AI tools with trust and verifiability built in, supported by formal usage policies and ongoing training.