The Last Generation of Pre-AI Lawyers

Elias Dehsabzi is an associate at Hicksons, a boutique Australian law firm that's been at the forefront of implementing AI in legal practice. As someone who trained before AI became standard in law firms but now works with it daily, he has a unique perspective on what's changing and what it means for the next generation of lawyers.

I often think about the juniors entering the profession today and how different their journey will be from mine. I sometimes joke that I’m part of the last generation of lawyers trained in a pre-AI world, and there’s a lot of truth in it. The traditional junior pathway has been remarkably consistent for decades, but I don’t see the next generation of lawyers having that same, almost pre-written journey.

The old rite of passage

Back then, there was a fairly standard rite of passage: your first 3 to 5 years of service, where a big chunk of junior life looked like:

• manual extraction from large files

• document review

• chronologies

• summaries and file notes

• redactions

• first-pass research dumps

• and a lot of “figuring it out as you go”

Today, only a few years later, much of that work is already being automated. The rest is on the same journey. It’s inevitable, and only a matter of time.

And surprisingly, that’s not a loss. It’s an opportunity, one that will redefine how juniors learn, grow, and contribute.

The “teaching hospital” model: learning by osmosis

For decades, law firms have resembled teaching hospitals: juniors learned incidentally, almost by osmosis, through proximity to experienced practitioners. Training wasn’t delivered in structured blocks; you were taught in the gaps: between deadlines, after reviews, in quick conversations, and through whatever feedback was possible in a busy week. Over time, you’d collect little “nuggets of gold”, the turns of phrase, judgment calls, and instincts, that slowly compounded into real capability.

The truth, though, is that much of this routine and repetitive work contributed only marginally to the education of junior staff. What mattered more was proximity. Juniors were close enough to the action to catch “nuggets of gold”, the judgment calls, the turns of phrase, the risk instincts, from senior experts, and over time those small insights slowly turned juniors into experts themselves. Firms could afford this slow, osmosis-style training because clients were paying for juniors to do the necessary routine and repetitive tasks, and because senior practitioners generally weren’t going to spend their time doing large-scale extraction work if it could be delegated.

Why this shift is a big deal

Here’s what’s changing: juniors will no longer spend their first 3 to 5 years doing the same volume of extraction-heavy work that was once considered a rite of passage. That’s a big deal, not just operationally, but developmentally.

I remember a partner once telling me those early years were the most important, the three-year drudgery of review, summaries, extraction and redrafting. In their view, the grind built resilience and attention to detail, and it weeded out the people who wouldn’t put in the work before they became senior. I still think part of that is true.

But it’s also true that those years weren’t actually that great for learning and progression, at least not in the way we sometimes pretend. What mattered most wasn’t the repetition; it was the moments of clarity: proximity to good practitioners, feedback that explained why something worked, and steady exposure to real judgment.

That’s why I see this shift as an opportunity. Clients get faster turnaround with less time spent on necessary-but-routine workflow; juniors develop judgment sooner because they spend less time as human extraction engines; seniors can focus on teaching higher-order thinking instead of repeatedly repairing basic structure and synthesis; and firms build capability faster because expertise transfers more efficiently.

Why 2026 is the baton pass

2025 was the preview. I think 2026 is the handover. The teams that keep leading will be the ones that give their people access to strong legal tech platforms like August, backed by the right culture, training, and supervision. The benefit won't just show up in speed, but in quality and client outcomes.

More on this in the next few blogs.