"The New Hot Job in Law Doesn’t Require a J.D." Article Reflection No. 194 (11/1/2026)
In her The New York Times article “The New Hot Job in Law Doesn’t Require a J.D.,” journalist Sarah Kessler discusses legal engineers, a career that requires both experience in practicing law along with applying knowledge about AI technology, with this job becoming especially eminent in recent times. These jobs’ responsibilities can include helping firms in law by creating resources involving the AI. The article also discusses how AI, especially in relation to (e.g.) the quantity of postings for law-related jobs, experienced an increase in LinkedIn. This job area has experienced large volumes of business and work, according to Seyfarth Shaw AI officer and chief data officer Byong Kim’s interview, as quoted in the article.
The increased presence and, through articles like this one, visibility of AI-related career paths in today’s age seems to echo this broader pattern of how the innovations that we humans contribute to and put out there in the world (e.g. AI technology) in turn has the effect of, in a way, demanding an answer from the economic standpoint (in this case, the job market). It’s interesting to me that, when reading about developments where, similar to the content of this article, there are adaptations that are made in response to what is demanded. However, what is being demanded is essentially a result of the same society who are making these adaptations in response to these demands. Perhaps this is a more philosophical lens of viewing this article since it’s examining the nature of the relationships between specific causes and effects (e.g. cause of the rise of AI technology usage; effect of needing more people to work AI-specific jobs).