Law Society CEO Ian Jeffery Says AI Feels Like 'Real Transformation' Not a Bubble, Predicting Structural Shift in Lawyer Roles Rather Than Mass Job Losses

Ian Jeffery, chief executive of the Law Society of England and Wales, has said that the wave of AI adoption sweeping the legal sector "doesn't feel like a bubble" — breaking with the more cautious framing adopted by some in the profession and predicting a period of genuine structural transformation affecting lawyers across all levels of seniority. Speaking to the Global Legal Post, Jeffery — a former managing partner of UK firm Lewis Silkin — predicted that AI will have more impact on the *type* of work lawyers do than on the total number of legal jobs. Lawyers will spend less time on document-heavy tasks such as sifting through disclosure and more time applying legal knowledge and judgment, he suggested. On large-scale litigation, practitioners already deal with hundreds of thousands or millions of document records; AI tools are reducing the time cost of that review substantially. Jeffery identified a new category of advisory work created by AI adoption: auditing AI systems and verifying the accuracy of their outputs — a task that requires legal expertise rather than replacing it. He also addressed the implications for junior lawyers, arguing that trainees will increasingly learn their craft partly by developing skills in checking AI outputs for accuracy and selecting the right AI tool for the right legal task. This represents a meaningful shift in the traditional training model, where drafting and document review formed the foundation of early-career skill development. The Bloomberg Law analysis published simultaneously frames the legal sector as a leading indicator for how AI will reshape white-collar work economy-wide — noting that law's text-heavy, judgment-intensive character makes it both a likely AI pioneer and a harsh environment for tech adoption given the profession's elevated standards around accuracy and confidentiality.