Artificial intelligence is what will finally restore the humanity to our profession. What an odd and paradoxical idea that is, but that doesn’t make it any less true. To move our profession forward beyond the shallow marketing tactics and noise, we first needed technology to evolve.
Search engines and the gamesmanship they engendered eroded the compact between attorney and client. It created a system that rewarded those lawyers who were not the best, the most honest, or the most talented, but merely the most willing to outbid the competition. SEO agencies were all too happy to aid in the commodification of attorneys, because it lined their pockets and they had plausible deniability. Lawyers were too busy to demand better, and it seemed there were no better options.
In my sixteen years of practice, I felt that way many times. Why was I bothering writing articles that nobody reads? I used to wonder. All this time spent on things that not even the search engines value!
AI is a great reset, at exactly the moment our profession needs it. Post Covid pandemic, post the most divisive election in American history, a new technology of all things is what promises a brighter future.
To think we’ve been operating for two decades now in a system that rewards those lawyers who pay search engines rather than those who write books, display thought leadership and perform independent scholarship in their practice area. To think we’ve operated in an environment that rewards shallow, keyword stuffed blog posts rather than in-depth articles written in an engaging manner.
AI may not have us returning to the type of marketing that was preferred pre-technology, and I don’t imagine we’ll be riding circuit anytime soon either; but what AI does restore is the ability to utilize the oldest, purest tools of our trade. Namely: our words, whether written or spoken. One cannot persuade in a PPC ad, not truly. There is only so much information we can provide via most social media channels.
AI promises a restoration to depth. Artificial intelligence, of all things, will help us lawyers restore our humanity.
What a lifeline it’s been for me, a born creative who combines the heart of a writer with the work ethic of a lawyer. Books for Experts is a business born of my disgust: at sludge marketers and the commodification of our profession. I knew that fighting sludge marketers and humanizing lawyers were the life’s work I needed to undertake in the second half of my life. To combine my years of legal experience with my creative experiences to produce an AIO system that would allow lawyers to regain authority, and eventually, reputation.
AI is not the most important part of AIO. What we’re really doing is crafting work that appeals to fellow humans, and just so happens to appeal to AI also. If what you’re doing, or planning to do, cannot speak to AI and human alike, then it’s best to go back to the drawing board. Once you start taking action for technology, at the cost of persuading humans, you’re back in the search engine trap we’ve just been released from.
It’s hard to take the long road when short-term problems are knocking at your door. I know, because when I started Books for Experts I faced the same issue. It would take months for my content to get distributed effectively, for AI to catch on to what I was doing. Especially in a new category, where many lawyers do not even yet realize that the status quo is about to change. Every step of the way I’ve had to educate law firms and lawyers about what’s going on. Before I could educate anyone on how to fix the problem, I had to first teach them what was about to change.
And it’s not that lawyers are satisfied with the current system. These are some of the brightest minds on the planet, of course they realize our profession’s become commodified in all the wrong ways. But it’s hard to solve a technological problem with humanity. Fittingly enough, perhaps, sometimes only a technological solution can solve a technological problem. Search engines had to merge and evolve with AI to fix the shallow, unsophisticated results they were providing.
Now, the future of our profession is, paradoxically, more human.
AI is filled with paradoxes like this. The fact that human writing will become more, not less valuable, when anyone can use AI to churn out material is a paradox. That the more lawyers share their knowledge, in a human and narrative manner, the more successful they will be is another paradox. Because in the age of AI, facts will be everywhere. What is left is authority: knowing how to take expertise and fuse it into something authentic, and powerful, and lasting.
The more you narrow your niche, the richer you’re likely to be in terms of wealth and a lack of stress. That is yet another paradox. AI will reward those with not only a specialty, but a philosophy. The narrower your niche, the more you’ll be connected to just the right clients. But always remember that it is your Authority Philosophy that represents your purest niche and chance for connection.
That slow to build authority assets are the fastest way to increase revenue is yet another paradox, as is the fact that the more you embrace human, seemingly inefficient tactics like bar association leadership and sponsoring events in the real world, the more your digital profile will grow. We can call that the Pillar Three paradox.
The future is wide open for lawyers, for perhaps the first time in your entire career. Those who are entrenched can be dislodged, if they do not wise up to the new game. That which used to bestow success, can turn against you in an algorithmic tweaked second.
But what is lasting, and enduring, is humanity. Lawyers are humans, assisting other humans through some of the hardest moments of their lives. And if you want to quibble about semantics, I argue the same is true even if you’re representing businesses, organizations, entities, or governments. Every organization is ultimately humanistic, even the ones incorporating machines made in our image.
AI is not the point of AIO, humans are. AI is just the mechanism that finally, finally changed the terrain.
Finish this book, then go look out at the vast, human world you are a part of.
Find your Authority Philosophy, hit the throttle, and move forward boldly into this big, beautiful, brave new world.