AI won’t change what it takes to be a good lawyer, according to one industry leader.
“So I actually think a lot of what makes an incredible lawyer today is still what will make one tomorrow,” Winston Weinberg, Harvey’s cofounder and chief executive, wrote during a recent Reddit Ask Me Anything chat.
Weinberg, whose AI startup is already disrupting Big Law, said the best partners Harvey works with understand their business needs.
“I’ve found that the best partners are the ones that are incredible at understanding what the actual business needs are and framing an agreement based on that,” Weinberg wrote. “Same goes for litigation, it’s who can come up with the best arguments/story not who is the best at going through emails in discovery.”
Overall, junior partners should try to get “as much client experience as possible,” Weinberg said.
“That’s actually the main thing I pitch to firm leaders – they should focus more on giving juniors client experience, and be okay with them making some mistakes – that’s how they become the best partners in the future,” he wrote.
Last week, Harvey reached a valuation of $8 billion, thanks to a recent funding round led by A16z. Weinberg said that no single company, including Harvey, will own the legal tech market.
“I don’t think a single player is going to capture all of the pretty enormous amount of value that will be created in the next 10 years in this space,” he wrote in the Reddit chat.
As for lawyers who want to follow in his footsteps, Weinberg said they need to get used to failure.
“Junior lawyers are often practiced perfectionists, and startups are all about risk, reward, and resilience,” Weinberg told Business Insider after his Reddit chat. “So I meant what I said–the biggest thing a lawyer who wants to work in the tech space should do is build up tolerance for failure.”
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