---
title: "Will AI Replace Lawyers? (2026)"
description: "BLS rates lawyers' exposure to AI as very high. What that means, which parts of the work AI touches, and the 2025–2035 outlook (+4.7% projected)."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/will-ai-replace-lawyers"
last-updated: "2026-10-15T08:19:32.066Z"
---

# Will AI Replace Lawyers? (2026)

**Short answer:** AI will reshape this job more than most, but BLS does not forecast it disappearing. The exposure is among the highest BLS measured, yet it still projects employment to grow faster than average.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics places lawyers in its very high AI exposure category, among the occupations most exposed to current AI. BLS projects employment to change by +4.7% over 2025–2035, against 3.5% for all occupations, with about 28,700 openings a year.

| Measure | Value | Source |
| --- | --- | --- |
| BLS relative AI exposure | Very high | BLS Employment Projections, AI exposure categories |
| NueCareer AI-resilience score | 28/100 | NueCareer analysis of O\*NET 31.0 Database |
| Projected employment change | +4.7% | BLS EP 2025–2035 |
| Openings a year | 28,700 | BLS EP 2025–2035 |
| Median annual wage | $159,670 | BLS OEWS May 2025 |

## Exposure categories

| BLS category | Occupations |
| --- | --- |
| Low | 203 |
| Moderate | 194 |
| High | 190 |
| Very high (this job) | 199 |

Exposure means AI could be or has been used to assist with or complete some of the work. BLS says it does not imply job loss, productivity gains, automation probability or wage effects. Method: https://www.bls.gov/emp/publications/ai-exposure-categories.htm

## What holds up

- Resolving conflicts and negotiating with others: 4.5/5 (O\*NET work activity importance)
- Face-to-face discussions: 4.4/5 (O\*NET work context)
- Establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships: 4.4/5 (O\*NET work activity importance)
- Making decisions and solving problems: 4.6/5 (O\*NET work activity importance)

## What AI reaches first

- Processing information: 4.1/5 (O\*NET work activity importance)
- Documenting/recording information: 4.0/5 (O\*NET work activity importance)
- Evaluating information to determine compliance with standards: 4.5/5 (O\*NET work activity importance)
- Getting information: 4.6/5 (O\*NET work activity importance)

## O\*NET tasks

- Interpret laws, rulings and regulations for individuals and businesses.
- Analyze the probable outcomes of cases, using knowledge of legal precedents.
- Confer with colleagues with specialties in appropriate areas of legal issue to establish and verify bases for legal proceedings.
- Examine legal data to determine advisability of defending or prosecuting lawsuit.
- Study Constitution, statutes, decisions, regulations, and ordinances of quasi-judicial bodies to determine ramifications for cases.
- Prepare, draft, and review legal documents, such as wills, deeds, patent applications, mortgages, leases, and contracts.

## FAQ

**Will AI replace lawyers?**

AI will reshape this job more than most, but BLS does not forecast it disappearing. The exposure is among the highest BLS measured, yet it still projects employment to grow faster than average. BLS defines exposure as AI being able to assist with or complete some of the work, and says it does not imply job loss, productivity gains or wage effects. BLS projects employment to change by +4.7% over 2025–2035, against 3.5% for all occupations, with about 28,700 openings a year.

**How exposed are lawyers to AI?**

BLS sorts 786 occupations into four relative categories: low, moderate, high and very high. Lawyers are in the very high category, alongside 198 other occupations. The categories combine five public measures of where AI could be or already is used, and they compare occupations with each other rather than giving an absolute risk.

**What parts of a lawyer's job can AI do?**

In O\*NET's description of the work, the parts that overlap most with what AI handles well are processing information, documenting/recording information and evaluating information to determine compliance with standards. The parts that hold up best are resolving conflicts and negotiating with others, face-to-face discussions and establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships. These come from O\*NET ratings of how important each activity is to the job, read through NueCareer's AI-resilience method.

**Is being a lawyer a safe career from AI?**

On NueCareer's AI-resilience score, built from O\*NET work activities, lawyers score 28 out of 100, higher than 20% of the occupations we score. The job pays a median of $159,670 a year (BLS OEWS, May 2025). No job is fully safe from technological change, but the federal exposure category and the projected openings are the two numbers worth weighing.

Full profile: https://nuecareer.com/careers/lawyer.

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology