There is a fundamental role that lawyers play that is an intangible: to pursue justice for the client.
Much of why law is expensive and has been slow to automate is because of intentional and unintentional barriers.
Unintentional because it has developed in evolutionary form, over hundereds of years, and during that time has imperfectly used human language as its protocol. Contracts and statutes are difficult to make perfect using the English language. Lawyers thus argue over what the parties intended and understood when they fixed their promises into words.
Intentional because of, for example regulatory capture. Law is an industry that has taken actions in the past to make itself necessary.
But even if these barriers are fixed and much of law is automated, there remains a notion of what is fair and right, or ought to be fair and right. This is a human concept.
Take for example blockchain and its contracts, which remove some of these barriers. Currency is transferred to/from one address to another because that is what the code intended, and the code is law and the transaction immutable. But what if the other side fraudulently misrepresented who they were? Do you not want a human advocate and arbitrator there to determine what is right in this situation?
There is a fundamental role that lawyers play that is an intangible: to pursue justice for the client.
Much of why law is expensive and has been slow to automate is because of intentional and unintentional barriers.
Unintentional because it has developed in evolutionary form, over hundereds of years, and during that time has imperfectly used human language as its protocol. Contracts and statutes are difficult to make perfect using the English language. Lawyers thus argue over what the parties intended and understood when they fixed their promises into words.
Intentional because of, for example regulatory capture. Law is an industry that has taken actions in the past to make itself necessary.
But even if these barriers are fixed and much of law is automated, there remains a notion of what is fair and right, or ought to be fair and right. This is a human concept.
Take for example blockchain and its contracts, which remove some of these barriers. Currency is transferred to/from one address to another because that is what the code intended, and the code is law and the transaction immutable. But what if the other side fraudulently misrepresented who they were? Do you not want a human advocate and arbitrator there to determine what is right in this situation?