As artificial intelligence automates the routine legal and accounting work that has traditionally trained junior professionals, law and accounting firms face a fundamental challenge: how to develop the next generation when entry-level assignments disappear.
Generative artificial intelligence is speeding up legal and accounting work, but there is growing concern that it could disrupt the long-standing ways both professions train future talent.
As AI increasingly takes over research memos, deposition summaries, document review and other routine assignments, industry leaders are grappling with what happens when young professionals lose opportunities to learn through that work.
“The way that we certainly have done it in law firms is by giving the junior members of the team the more repetitive, the more rote pieces of work,” said Lee Hoffman, chair of law firm Pullman & Comley. “And then as they do that, they learn by doing. And the question is whether or not generative AI will destroy that model. And I think the answer is yes.”
Hoffman said the shift will force firms to rethink how they develop talent, with junior staff taking on more complex assignments earlier in their careers under closer supervision.
That challenge, often described as the apprenticeship conundrum, has become a major topic in the legal and accounting professions.
Peter Zarella, a partner at McCarter & English, said law firms may need to become more deliberate about talent development, investing in young lawyers even when AI can perform some work more efficiently and at lower cost.
“There might be periods of time where they are not going to be able to produce the same ROI, the same volume of billable work that they might have been able to in years and generations past,” Zarella said.
Accounting firms are having similar conversations.
Michael Sabol, co-founder of Glastonbury-based accounting firm MahoneySabol, said there is widespread concern that companies across a variety of industries could reduce or eliminate in-house accounting roles in favor of AI tools, cutting off another training ground for younger accountants.
“What people talk about is that there won’t be any need for staff accountants anymore because all that grunt work can be done by AI,” Sabol said. “How do you become a senior accountant if you haven’t been a junior accountant?”
Sabol said the accounting industry has long relied on a pyramid-shaped staffing model, with large numbers of junior accountants supporting a smaller group of managers and firm leaders.
Some in the industry now envision AI reshaping that into more of a “diamond,” with fewer entry-level workers and a larger concentration of experienced professionals overseeing AI-generated work.
“But what I don’t understand about that model, is what’s the pipeline for that middle management if you don’t have the bottom?” Sabol said.
AI efficiencies are already influencing hiring decisions at the largest firms in the industry, said Drew Andrews, managing partner and CEO of Hartford-based accounting firm Whittlesey.
“The guys I know in the Big Four firms, they’re telling me they’re starting to hire less of the younger people,” Andrews said.
Whittlesey has not reduced staffing because the firm continues to grow while still facing labor shortages, Andrews said.
Younger professionals may ultimately find opportunities in an AI-driven workplace because they will enter the workforce already familiar with the technology, he added.
“They’re going to be educated that way,” Andrews said. “The universities are going to do that.”
‘If we fight it, we will lose’
At Quinnipiac University School of Law, faculty have already begun adjusting coursework to account for AI’s growing role in legal practice.
Jordan JeffersonJordan Jefferson, director of the Lynne L. Pantalena Law Library at Quinnipiac University and an associate professor at its law school, said she has helped integrate AI literacy into two courses since 2024.
Lessons on algorithmic integrity and AI-assisted research are now part of Jefferson’s required first-year legal research course. She also co-teaches a symposium examining generative AI’s promises and pitfalls in the legal profession.
One major goal, Jefferson said, is producing graduates capable of helping firms responsibly implement AI systems.
“My goal is to create reverse mentors,” Jefferson said. “I want our students to walk out of my class and walk into any law firm or legal aid organization that is contemplating or has integrated generative AI, and I want them to be able to help mold those conversations.”
Rather than discouraging students from using AI, Jefferson said the emphasis is on teaching future attorneys how to critically evaluate AI-generated work and understand where the technology falls short.
Jefferson said she is less concerned about AI eliminating lawyers entirely than about the technology widening a wealth-based gap in access to quality representation.
She said large firms can afford sophisticated closed-loop AI systems, while smaller firms, legal aid groups and self-represented litigants may have to rely on cheaper public AI tools that are less powerful and less reliable.
Still, Jefferson said the legal profession has repeatedly adapted to technological change, from computerized legal databases to electronic filing systems.
“This is how law is going to be practiced,” Jefferson said. “If we fight it, we will lose.”
