April 27, 2026  • By Dennis Beaver

Just about every day now, I get emails and phone calls from readers asking the same question: “With what we are seeing, AI is leading to the wholesale firing of hundreds of thousands of employees across entire industries. Should I consider law as a career?”

My answer: Let history be your guide. Consider these questions:

• What was the dominant means of transportation in the early 1900s in villages and cities across our country?

• Who, and in which profession, assured their dependability?

• How many of them were there in the late 19th century? How many now?

• What one factor explained their vanishing as a primary industry, and when it first emerged, was it seen as a threat to their profession?

Indispensable to daily life

The answer: The village smithy, aka the blacksmith, assured that horses could provide the transportation that was indispensable to daily life. Blacksmiths numbered in the hundreds of thousands in the late 19th century, but there are only about 10,000 today.

When the first automobiles hit the market, they were seen as playthings of the wealthy, not a threat to the respected role blacksmiths held in society.

I submit that AI is today’s equivalent of the automobile, and it’s having a similar impact on the legal profession as law firms no longer require dozens of junior lawyers to search through millions of pages to find a smoking gun when AI can do it, and so much more, in minutes.

Solving a problem without a lawyer

One of my clients, “Dr. Dan,” called the other day, thrilled to tell me how he’d used AI to avoid becoming the victim of his landlord’s unreasonable requests. “She sent a modification to our lease that made no sense at all. I could have called you, but first I asked AI if this was legal and reasonable and how could I politely reply.

“AI said that it was not legal and asked if I wanted a response that I could send, in lawyerlike language, explaining why the landlord was wrong. I typed, ‘yes,’ and in a couple of seconds, I got a beautifully reasoned response, which I sent to her.

“She phoned me right back saying, ‘Dan, you’re right. But tell me, how much did your lawyer charge you for this letter? It is so well written!’ We had a good laugh. I think AI is going to put a lot of lawyers out of work.”

What do law school deans and admissions officers say?

To get a feel for what the top brass in higher education have to say, I reached out to several deans and admissions officers and left this voicemail: “How will AI impact law? Today, would you advise a family member to apply to law school? Also, can you explain the enormous increase in applications to law schools the past several decades?”

Two agreed to discuss these issues on condition of anonymity so they could be perfectly candid, and both noted one of the most important reasons we have seen an enormous increase in the number of law students over the past few decades: Money (for the schools).

“The growth in law school enrollment hasn’t matched the actual need for new lawyers,” said the dean at a Midwest law school. I’ll call her Anna. “The ratio of lawyers to the U.S. population today is four times what it was in 1970, and many of our graduates are underemployed and facing enormous student loan debt.

“The explosive growth in admissions over the last 50 years was primarily because law school is a cash cow for universities.

“We can’t lose — but no one cared if students would get hired into positions where they could have a decent life and repay their loans.

“And the more students we admit, the greater the damage will be due to AI. Law schools are motivated by tuition, not placement. It is as if we are graduating manual laborers into a robot-factory economy, and there will be pain.”

Big, bad gamble

The dean of a Southern law school, whom I’ll call Stacey, pointed out, “As we speak, law school enrollment is surging, and many students are making a horribly bad bet on future, high-income employment. The supply-and-demand mismatch will be horrible as AI adoption scales upward.”

Both educators provided this gloomy outlook on the future: Law school graduates of 2027 and 2028 will be entering a job market where AI has progressed from the testing stage to real, daily operational functionality.

Their advice: Look for a law school with a curriculum that teaches how to use AI — those courses will impress an employer.

So, here is what anyone considering law school needs to keep in mind: Just as the Model T didn’t put blacksmiths out of work overnight, we are not going to have fewer lawyers immediately. Those who can master AI will be hired and well compensated.

Anyone considering law as a profession might want to check out the one-star ratings of law firms on Yelp. Also, give these questions some thought:

• Why do so many young lawyers leave the profession?

• Why do so many attorneys become alcoholics and substance abusers?

• Why are they so disillusioned?

• Why do they have such a high divorce rate?

Instead of being a lawyer, why not become a blacksmith? At least you’ll be paid for — wait, it’s coming — horsing around.

Dennis Beaver Practices law in Bakersfield and welcomes comments and questions from readers,
which may be faxed to (661) 323-7993,
or e-mailed to Lagombeaver1 – at – Gmail.com.

The post If You’re Considering Law School, This History Lesson Is for You appeared first on Dennis Beaver.

February 3, 2026  • By Dennis Beaver

Today’s story will be valuable to anyone who is presently looking for a job, or will be in the future.

Graduates are finding now to be one of the most difficult times to land a job. They need every tool available to convince a hiring manager that they are the right fit.

William Vanderbloemen’s Work How You Are Wired: 12 Data-Driven Steps to Finding a Job You Love offers job-searching readers insights such as, “Who am I? What am I wired to do? What should I steer clear from? These are qualities that job seekers need to be aware of and prepared to articulate during an interview to be hired for work that they are best suited to do.”

I consider Work How You Are Wired and Vanderbloemen’s Be the Unicorn, which I reviewed in my 2023 article Four Easy Ways to Get Yourself Fired, as the ideal graduation presents for the business major or MBA in your family, or anyone who wants to learn how to be a standout at whatever career they choose. (I wish that they’d been available when I joined the working world. I would have made fewer dumb mistakes!)

Also, if you know someone who wanders from job to job, Work How You Are Wired will help them to figure out why they are stuck in that revolving door and to find work that matches their motivations, personality, skills, strengths and values.

Here are some of the main points that I discussed with Vanderbloemen in our Zoom meeting:

1. Begin your job search by asking, ‘What am I wired to do?’

If you feel you must take any job to put food on your family’s table, or you are hired for something that you are not wired to do, you will most likely end up hating the job. Unfortunately, many Americans do not like their jobs, according to the Pew Research Center.

So the question is: How do you make sure you don’t interview for a position you’re going to absolutely loathe?

The answer to that begins with a journey of self-discovery and figuring out what you are wired to do — your natural abilities.

Most people have one or two “strength zones,” or areas of competence where they excel. The challenge is discovering what they are.

2. Knowing yourself is imperative before that job interview

There are several commercial personality assessment tests that help discover how we prefer to communicate, work and make decisions — in effect, what occupations we are best suited for and will enjoy doing and even what we should avoid.

These include DISC, Enneagram, Myers-Briggs and the Vander Index, which draws on the 12 success-building habits discussed in Be the Unicorn.

Vanderbloemen notes that Work How You Are Wired provides much of the same useful information as commercially available products without the need to take a personality test. He presents objective data that will help refine the search for employment that matches your strengths, personality, habits and values — in effect, how you are wired.

So, for anyone pounding the pavement and perhaps not feeling on top of the world after meeting with hiring managers, Work How You Are Wired is a gift, as it can show the reader how to discover and articulate their strengths and abilities and figure out which types of positions they are best suited for.

3. Determining your ideal work

Vanderbloemen zeroes in on objective categories of data that can point you in the direction of what you are wired to do, including your communication style, core values, ideal work environment and skills.

The book also helps identify what motivates you and your calling or purpose. Do you have a desire to effect change and have an impact? Do you seek recognition? Do you work best on a team or alone? Are you the one who has a plan or carries out the plans of others? Are you a leader or a follower?

These objective data points open a door to finding not just any job, but the right job for you.

Being prepared for AI-directed interviews

Today, when you sit down for an in-person interview, you’ve got to assume that the questions are provided by AI, and the human interviewer will be looking for clarity, logical structure and consistency in the applicant’s narrative rather than focusing on the applicant’s personality and charm.

After reading Work How You Are Wired, you’ll be more self-aware, and it will be far easier for you to explain why your skills and abilities are a good fit for the job.

Over the years, I have read several “how to get hired” books. Wired and Be the Unicorn are the best I’ve found when it comes to providing job applicants with the insights they truly need in order to land the right job for them, the job they are meant for.

Dennis Beaver Practices law in Bakersfield and welcomes comments and questions from readers,
which may be faxed to (661) 323-7993,
or e-mailed to Lagombeaver1 – at – Gmail.com.

The post This Is How You Can Land a Job You’ll Love appeared first on Dennis Beaver.

January 26, 2026  • By Dennis Beaver

Talk about putting useful information to work — our January 13 article, Billed 12 Hours for a Few Seconds of Work: How AI Is Helping Law Firms Overcharge Clients, riled up several readers.

The article notes that some law firms are using AI to produce — in seconds — documents that would normally take hours to draft. Yet, they’re billing for those hours as if the work had been done the old way.

This lit a spark under many who read the story and had “are you kidding me?” discussions with their lawyers.

Don’t be afraid to bring it up

Beyond saying, “I think you owe me a refund,” many readers reported that they went a step further. Not wanting to be dismissed with, “That’s our bill — pay it,” they researched their state’s bar regulations on charging for work that was actually performed — the time that was, in fact, spent on the task.

“Ben,” in Cleveland, wrote, “I found a shopping list of violations that could jeopardize her license to practice law. I don’t want to be accused of extortion or blackmail. I want to say, ‘AI was used, yet I was billed as if you had done the work yourself. I expect a refund for the unearned hours. You know the consequences if I file a complaint with the bar.’

“What if she replies, ‘Don’t threaten to complain to the bar, because that is blackmail, and you’ll find yourself in trouble.”

Ben absolutely can say that. Filing a complaint with his state’s bar would not be extortion, as there is a legitimate reason. I suggested this direct, yet more diplomatic, approach:

As AI was used to generate the material, all I am asking is for a refund of what I was overcharged and nothing more. I am prepared to file that complaint, but that is not what I want to do.

Lawyers comment on 2,000-hour billing requirement

Our story also cited the destructive, inhumane, fraud-creating requirement for attorneys to bill 2,000-plus hours yearly to keep their job, which translates into expecting high-quality legal work to be produced 12 hours a day.

“Utterly impossible,” according to Dr. Luis Vega, professor of Psychology at California State University, Bakersfield. “This completely unreasonable and unachievable hour total finds decent people caught in a web of corporate greed.

“While there is individual variation, on average, four hours of intense focus is typically the most one can expect per day. It is called the Four-Hour Rule of Productivity.”

The responses to this issue, from attorneys in the U.S. and Canada, were touching.

From midsize to Big Law firms, lawyers phoned my office after 3 p.m. Pacific Time, which made it 6 p.m. on the East Coast, when most support staff had left for the day. (I ran phone numbers through a reverse look-up service to verify their origin, often seeing a photo and description on their firm’s web page.)

I listened as young lawyers poured out their hearts to me, some who had read this column throughout law school.

YouTube helps some lawyers cheat

I spoke with “Claudia,” “Rex” and “Tim” in New York, who teamed up on speakerphone. Claudia said, “When you used the term ‘sweatshop,’ that describes our job environment perfectly.”

Rex added, “This place is just plain toxic. When we were in law school and attended the firm’s summer camp, it was all fun, but no one ever told us that, when hired, we would become slaves to the billable hour.”

Claudia chimed back in with, “You can’t fulfill a 2,000-hour yearly billing goal honestly. It is impossible. But YouTube billing tutorials by other lawyers showed us how to bill creatively — in other words, commit billing fraud!”

She directed me to a YouTube video where an attorney suggested billing whatever time is spent thinking about a client’s case — while taking a shower, driving to work, even sleeping.

“So,” Claudia continued, “when you wrote that the pressure and insane time demands destroy families and lead to divorce, burnout, depression and substance abuse, you have described most lawyers here — some are on their second marriage, at least.”

Tim observed, “Many attorneys who have been here for several years virtually have ‘I hate this place’ stamped on their foreheads. I do not know a single colleague who can claim being happy to come to work, despite the money.”

He added, “Not in our pre-law university classes nor law school was any of this reality ever discussed. I am looking for a job with the county or city because I do not want to become a statistic. I want a normal life, dinner with my family, taking our kids out for a trip to the park. I want to be a real husband and father, not someone who is married to the firm!”

A promise of change

One Kansas City, Kansas, law firm was different, though.

“Mr. Beaver,” “Monique” said, “your column is very popular here and is frequently discussed in office meetings. So when your AI story ran, there was quite a buzz!

“One of the partners called for a meeting and said, ‘We should send Mr. Beaver a box of Kansas City steaks. His AI story brought out into the open something we have all been aware of and, I’m sure, bothered by.

“‘Just so everyone knows, management gets it. We have been exploring old-fashioned ways to bill for services, just like Beaver referenced in his article. Please give us some time. Please trust us to make things better.'”

Dennis Beaver Practices law in Bakersfield and welcomes comments and questions from readers,
which may be faxed to (661) 323-7993,
or e-mailed to Lagombeaver1 – at – Gmail.com.

The post ‘You Owe Me a Refund’: Readers Report Challenging Their Attorneys’ Bills appeared first on Dennis Beaver.

January 13, 2026  • By Dennis Beaver

Today’s story is an example of the old saying, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play.” In litigation, you are the cat. Your attorney’s large law firm is the mouse that bills you thousands of dollars in unjustifiable and grossly inflated — read: fraudulently inflated — attorney fees for “billable hours” your attorney did not work, but their firm made doing this the only way to remain employed.

In the mid-1900s, in an effort to increase incomes, the legal profession went from fee schedules in which creating a will, defending a DUI or handling a divorce would cost the same no matter how many hours it took, to the billable hour.

In 1958, the American Bar Association recommended a reasonable 1,300 yearly billable-hour goal, which meant a lawyer could be home for dinner with the family and lead a normal life.

Today, massive, heartless, soulless Big Law firms (and many midsize ones) require 2,200 or more billable hours, which translates into being at work 60-plus hours a week, or 10 to 12 hours a day, five days a week and often on weekends. This invites billing for time not spent on a client’s matter, also known as fraud.

This marathon destroys families and leads to multiple divorces, burnout, depression and substance abuse.

As Lyle Sussman, professor emeritus in the College of Business at the University of Louisville (and a friend of this column), puts it, “I have consulted with executives across many industries. It is ludicrous to assume that anyone assigned to high-risk, high-reward work can consistently devote 60 hours per week without experiencing declining energy, commitment, efficiency and morale.”

Withdrawal symptoms are appearing

If you are engaged to a lawyer who has been offered a job at one of these firms, ask yourself, “How happy will I be when having dinner with my spouse and kids is impossible? Do I want to be with someone who works in a sweatshop and is married to the firm?”

Well, today, the legal profession is starting to experience withdrawal symptoms as its drug of choice — overbilling clients — is being challenged by AI’s incredible time-saving abilities.

“AI is creating seismic disruption in industries built on the scanning, collection, synthesis, formatting and reporting of data,” Sussman says. And that includes the legal profession.

(For a fascinating history of billing fraud and how we got here, you can check out the article “Bill, Baby, Bill: How the Billable Hour Emerged as the Primary Method of Attorney Fee Generation” by Stuart Pardau in the Idaho Law Review. Another article, by Nancy Rapoport and Joseph Tiano Jr., both friends of this column, worth checking out is: “Fighting the Hypothetical: Why Law Firms Should Rethink The Billable Hour in the Generative AI Era,” published in the Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts.)

A real-world example

“Taylor” phoned my office from Little Rock, Arkansas, and was upset.

“My lawyer billed 12 hours for discovery in a simple debt lawsuit,” she said. “Her invoice listed ‘drafting interrogatories, requests for admissions and related written items,’ copies of which I have. We are both country gals, but these are written oddly, not the way people usually speak — they are just too polished.

“Would you please go over them and tell me what you think? I know she is being considered to become a partner in the firm, but before this, I never saw anything that raised a doubt.”

I agreed and asked for the particulars of the case — amount, services or product sold, location, date, parties and court jurisdiction.

I looked over what she sent, and Taylor was correct. The discovery requests didn’t “sound” normal. So, I ran them through three different online AI checkers. Bingo! The AI checkers indicated the documents were 88% to 95% created by AI. (For the record, AI checkers can sometimes flag original content as being created by AI, which is why I used three different tools.)

Next, using a free AI resource, I entered Taylor’s details and specified that I wanted content that was “at a sixth-grade level.” I hit enter, and almost instantly, beautifully written documents appeared. It would have taken me hours to draft the same things.

Clearly, Taylor needed to discuss the billing issues with her lawyer (we’ll call her Amanda) and challenge the number of hours. I gave Taylor tips on how to come across with a positive attitude.

A proper way to challenge the bill

• State the issue factually. This will avoid confrontation and keep the focus on the issue, not Amanda’s integrity or honesty. Taylor could say, “The discovery requests appear to have been generated by AI. As it produces drafts almost instantly, I don’t understand the several hours billed for them.”

• Ask for an explanation, but don’t make an accusation. She could say, “Can you show me how that time was calculated — what work went into the discovery that was not AI?” Let’s assume Amanda does this but can’t justify the time billed.

• Be clear and reasonable in your request for a reduction. Taylor could say, “My understanding is that bills for professional services need to reflect the actual time it took to do the work. AI is a great tool, but doesn’t the bill still need to be accurate? Can you help me understand it, or” — giving Amanda an out — “perhaps did a paralegal or secretary not realize that AI was used and billed a standard amount for the work?”

• If you get a refusal to adjust the bill, remain polite and calm. “Well, anyway, it is always a pleasure to get together with you, as we have known each other all these years, so I will discuss this with my CPA and a friend who’s also a lawyer” — the idea is to refer to another authority — “and get back to you on a resolution and whether to continue our relationship.”

Should Taylor change lawyers? Based upon my experience, yes, she needs to obtain a new lawyer. She could contest the bill with her local bar association’s fee arbitration, but even if they order a reduction, once trust is broken in the attorney/client relationship, doubt will remain forever.

This is true even if her attorney comes clean and apologizes; she’s already made her character clear. You can’t trust a lawyer who has tried to cheat you.

The billable hour has become a liability

An AI tsunami has hit the legal profession. Document review, once requiring weeks of several junior lawyers’ billable time, can now take just hours, creating an existential challenge as branches fall off the money tree.

If lawyers take a giant leap back to a time of fixed or outcome-based fees, it will be a cultural earthquake, where retention and advancement, based on “hours billed,” become meaningless.

Partner compensation dependent upon individual billings must be rethought.

Instead of fee-generation as their goal, lawyers might actually think about helping clients solve their legal problems without running up the bill.

And the billable hour may find itself in a museum display case.

Dennis Beaver Practices law in Bakersfield and welcomes comments and questions from readers,
which may be faxed to (661) 323-7993,
or e-mailed to Lagombeaver1 – at – Gmail.com.

The post Billed 12 Hours for a Few Seconds of Work: How AI Is Helping Law Firms Overcharge Clients appeared first on Dennis Beaver.