Written by Michael Lukon | Intellectual Property Specialist Consultant at Eden Rose USA
Will AI promote a shift in hiring more experienced IP lawyers? As we have all heard, AI is rapidly changing the economics of IP practice. Patent and trademark searches, claim charts, office action responses, prior art analyses, and even patent and trademark application drafts can increasingly be generated or accelerated by AI.
Word on the street is that AI will not completely replace IP lawyers. However, the more interesting question is: Will AI make experienced IP lawyers more attractive and valuable?
Traditionally, junior IP lawyers learned by doing which may include going through file histories and talking with more experienced lawyers about the findings and potential strategies as one example. As another example, a junior patent attorney may be tasked with searching prior art, analyzing references, drafting claim sets, and receiving edits (and hopefully feedback) from more experienced lawyers.
In contrast, as AI is increasingly used, less experienced lawyers could become editors of AI-generated work without developing the same depth of judgment that previous generations acquired through time-on-task and hands-on experience. We have all heard that AI is great at producing answers that look right and provide a “feel-good” response (positive feedback).
For example, an AI-generated patent analysis might:
A lawyer with 15 or 20 years of experience may recognize these issues almost immediately. That instinct isn’t necessarily something the lawyer can learn from a prompt. It comes from having seen the same mistakes and issues hundreds of times. As AI becomes better at producing a first draft, the value of the lawyer may increasingly shift from production to value-added judgment.
That is why I believe experienced IP lawyers (e.g., those with 10+ years of substantive experience) could become increasingly valuable in the lateral market. However, practice group leaders need to understand the value of these experienced lawyers who may not demand the same lockstep salaries but substantially reduce malpractice risk and client dissatisfaction.
Firms having a predominantly lockstep compensation and seniority structure can make seasoned lawyers among the most difficult lateral hires. My experience has been that these seasoned candidates are routinely dismissed without sufficient review or consideration by the partners-in-charge since they do not check the boxes of the lockstep or overly constrained hiring model. Firms may worry about where such an experienced lawyer fits within their existing hierarchy, whether there is enough work to support the seniority, and whether the lawyer can generate sufficient business to justify compensation.
A firm may happily hire three or four junior associates to support an existing partner, while hesitating to hire one highly experienced lawyer who does not fit the hierarchal criteria or seems too old. Such a traditional model may become increasingly problematic in an AI-driven practice, which patent and trademark prosecution seem to be leaning.
If AI reduces the amount of routine work that needs to be performed, the economics of adding another group of junior lawyers may become less compelling. The scarce resource may instead become experienced human judgment.
The challenge will be figuring out how to compensate and integrate that experience without forcing every senior lateral into a traditional model. There may be an opportunity for firms to create more flexible structures for experienced IP lawyers (e.g., counsel and partner-level lawyers without a book of business) with compensation based on years on task, added client value, supervision of AI-enabled workflows, and specialized knowledge rather than simply years in the lockstep model.
If this trend continues, law firms may increasingly compete for a particular type of lateral. That is, lawyers with enough experience to understand where AI is powerful, where it is unreliable, and where trusting it could create a catastrophic mistake. Ironically, the technology that may commoditize junior-level IP work could make accumulated experience more valuable and in demand.
The firms that rely on specialty recruiters can readily determine how to locate and retain those lawyers which can result in a significant competitive advantage.
I have had so many difficult candidate calls with lawyers having solid experience, the right education, the credentials to hit the ground running and be a profitable and dependable team asset, but do not even make it past the initial HR review.
If your firm has a need for IP lawyers with solid experience, please reach out.
michael.lukon@edenroselegal.com | 865.386.6105