The junior lawyer’s job just got more interesting. Here’s what that means if you’re thinking about a clerkship.
There’s a story being told about the future of junior lawyers, and it isn’t the right one.
The headlines are hard to ignore: Professional service firms cutting graduate intakes; AI displacing entry-level work; The end of the traditional pyramid.
If you’re a law student weighing up where, or whether, to apply for a clerkship, it would be reasonable to feel uncertain. If you’re considering a clerkship, it’s a fair question to ask – What does this actually mean for me?
From a People and Culture Perspective, the view from inside a firm looks quite different.
What AI has actually changed
In practice, the work AI performs most effectively is the type of work junior lawyers have traditionally spent a significant portion of their time on — initial document review, preliminary research, and first-pass drafting.
That work hasn’t disappeared. Clients still need it done, and they still expect it to be done well. What’s changed is the speed and efficiency with which it can be completed.
As a result, a junior lawyer with the right tools can now move through in a morning what used to take a week. The question is what happens with the time that’s freed up.
The key shift isn’t less work — it’s different work, earlier.
Within our team, that means junior lawyers are moving up the value chain faster. Juniors are in client meetings earlier, contributing to strategy discussions earlier, and taking ownership of drafting and analysis in their first year. The learning curve is steeper, but also more engaging. For the right candidates, this presents a significant opportunity.
This is not a comfortable change for everyone. It demands more judgement, sooner. It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to junior legal practice in decades.
The Skills that Now Matter
When we look at clerkship candidates, strong academic results and extracurricular experience still matter. But increasingly, we’re focused on attributes that reflect how someone will operate in this evolving environment.
1. Judgment under ambiguity
AI can generate technically correct answers — but not always contextually right ones.
We’re looking for candidates who can identify gaps, challenge assumptions, and refine the question being asked. That’s a human skill, and it’s the one we’re now training for from day one.
2. Commercial curiosity
The most successful junior lawyers aren’t just technically capable — they understand the client’s broader commercial position. With AI handling more of the technical lift, the differentiator is increasingly the lawyer who understands why the client is asking, not just what they’re asking.
Candidates who show genuine interest in industries, deal structures, and business drivers tend to move into higher-value work more quickly.
3. Comfort with tools, without dependence on them
AI is a powerful tool, but it still requires oversight.
The strongest candidates treat it as a helpful input, not a substitute for independent thinking. Useful, but never trusted without verification. That posture is harder to teach than it sounds. It requires technical literacy and intellectual confidence at the same time.
None of these skills are things AI replaces. Rather, they are things AI makes more valuable.
What a Clerkship Looks like now
Clerkships are evolving alongside the profession.
At Results Legal, clerks are introduced to AI tools from their first week. You’ll be expected to understand their limits as well as their capabilities. As the day-to-day experience is shifting, you’ll spend less time on the repetitive, process-driven work that used to fill a junior’s day, and more time on the work that used to be reserved for someone more senior.
At the same time, supervision and mentorship remain a core part of the experience. The compression of the training arc means we’re investing more in mentorship, not pulling back from it. Our “Grow Our Own” approach continues to underpin how we develop talent — supporting clerks through to graduate roles, and ultimately into senior positions within the firm. If anything, the faster pace of development has increased our investment in training, not reduced it.
Law firms have always been built on developing junior lawyers into trusted associates. That hasn’t changed.
A Realistic view
There’s no question about it; the legal profession is changing – Lets not pretend it isn’t.
Some firms will approach this transition by focusing on efficiency alone. They’ll use AI to cut headcount rather than to elevate the work. Quite frankly, in 5 years they will find they have no senior associates to promote because they stopped developing. This is the risk you are seeing in headlines.
Others — including ours — see it as an opportunity to elevate the role of junior lawyers. The pyramid hasn’t collapsed; it has been reshaped into something that demands more of the people inside it and offers more in return.
Are you considering a clerkship?
The candidates who will do well in this environment are those who approach it with a balanced perspective. Not overly concerned about being replaced, and not naive about how much the work has changed.
We are looking for candidates who are curious, judgment-oriented, commercially interested, and open to learning in a fast-evolving environment.
If that’s you, we encourage you to apply to us, and to any firm that’s taking this transition seriously.
The next decade of legal practice is going to be more interesting than the last three combined. The junior lawyers entering the profession now are the ones who will define what the profession looks like on the other side of this shift. That’s not a bad seat to be sitting in.
Clerkships at Results Legal
