Chris Vaagt, a German/French qualified lawyer and law firm change consultant with over two decades of experience spanning European law studies and management consulting, explored one of the profession’s most fundamental questions: what defines a lawyer in today’s rapidly changing world? Having transitioned from legal practice to consulting after discovering he “loved people, not papers,” Vaagt offered insights into the enduring essence of legal practice amid technological disruption.

The AI Anxiety and Professional Identity Crisis

Vaagt’s exploration stems from direct conversations with lawyers expressing existential concerns about their professional future. “I have lawyers who call me and tell me, ‘Look, what can I do other than being a lawyer? Because in five years time, my job apparently is gone,'” he revealed, highlighting the anxiety permeating the profession as artificial intelligence advances.

This fear stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what lawyers actually do. The prevailing AI narrative reduces legal work to document production, treating lawyers as sophisticated clerks whose primary function is generating papers. This reductionist view overlooks the profession’s deeper purpose and unique value proposition in society.

The Lawyer as Medium

Central to Vaagt’s thesis is reconceptualising lawyers as “mediums” in the truest Latin sense—intermediaries who operate between different worlds. Lawyers serve as translators between the legal realm and everyday society, converting complex legal norms and social expectations into language and guidance that clients can understand and act upon.

“We represent on one hand the legal world and the legal norm, but also the social norms in society, and we translate them into what clients can understand,” Vaagt explained. This translation function extends beyond mere interpretation; it involves active mediation between abstract legal principles and concrete human situations.

This intermediary role positions lawyers as essential components of justice administration, operating independently from state apparatus whilst supporting the legal system’s functioning. Unlike AI systems that reproduce existing thinking patterns, lawyers bring human judgement and contextual understanding to legal interpretation.

The Trust Container Function

Perhaps most significantly, Vaagt identified lawyers as “containers for trust”—professionals who enable others to act with confidence in complex legal environments. This trust-generating function proves particularly crucial in societies where other institutions may be unreliable or corrupt.

Drawing from his experience in Ukraine and Russia, Vaagt noted how lawyers remained the final recourse for trust even in environments where judges, prosecutors, and administrators faced corruption issues. “Lawyers are the last one where they invest trust in, whom they hope for help in situations which are basically very dire,” he observed.

This trust relationship cannot be replicated by artificial intelligence, as it depends on human connection, ethical behaviour, and the ability to navigate complex moral and legal landscapes with creativity and judgement.

The Crash Testing Function

Vaagt introduced the concept of lawyers as “crash testers of laws”—professionals who test legal boundaries and push for innovation when existing laws fail to address new situations. This function requires creative thinking and willingness to challenge established interpretations when client needs demand it.

“When it comes to the point that you say, ‘Look, we might need to change the law here, or the law does not apply and we’ll fight for it,’ that’s where you crash test the current legal stipulations and be innovative,” Vaagt explained. This innovative capacity distinguishes lawyers from AI systems, which can only reproduce existing legal thinking rather than challenge or evolve it.

The Individual vs. Collective Paradox

One of Vaagt’s most interesting observations concerned the contradiction between lawyers’ individual innovation and collective conservatism. While individual lawyers often demonstrate remarkable creativity and adaptability in serving client needs—including embracing technologies like WhatsApp for business communication—law firms as organisations remain extremely traditional and risk-averse.

This paradox stems from the partnership structure that dominates legal practice globally. “Partnership organisations in themselves are very conservative. They just shy away from any kind of risk as a group,” Vaagt noted. Group dynamics within partnerships create resistance to change, even when individual partners demonstrate innovative capabilities.

Management Challenges and Professional Psychology

Vaagt identified a fundamental tension within law firms between lawyers’ desire for maximum personal freedom and the organisational need for coordination and management. This creates a paradoxical situation where professionals who insist on rules and regulations for society resist having rules applied to themselves within their firms.

The partnership model exacerbates this challenge, as lawyer-owners believe their legal expertise automatically qualifies them for management roles, despite lacking relevant training. Vaagt characterised law firms as “negligently managed,” noting that “it’s incredibly how badly managed they are.”

Professional psychology also plays a role. Vaagt identified distinct characteristics that draw individuals to legal careers, particularly a deep-seated desire for justice often rooted in personal experiences of unfairness. This creates professionals who are “extremely rules oriented” but also highly demanding of themselves and others, less emotionally open, and intensely focused on rules and values.

The Future Lawyer: Enhanced but Unchanged Core

Despite technological disruption, Vaagt argued that the fundamental functions of lawyers will remain unchanged. The core activities—serving as intermediaries, generating trust, and providing human judgement—cannot be replicated by artificial intelligence, regardless of how sophisticated document generation becomes.

However, lawyers must evolve their approach to remain relevant as clients become more technologically sophisticated. Simply providing documents will no longer suffice when clients can generate basic legal content independently.

The Consulting Skills Gap

Vaagt identified two critical areas for lawyer development: continued mastery of legal knowledge and dramatically improved consulting skills. The latter represents a significant blind spot for the profession.

“They believe they’re consultants, but they’ve never been trained,” Vaagt observed. “If you look at what psychology and all this area provides for consultants to be able to help, then clearly lawyers are quite underdeveloped in that their soft skill basis is not very strong.”

This skills gap becomes increasingly problematic as legal work evolves from document production toward complex advisory relationships requiring sophisticated interpersonal capabilities. Vaagt shared a striking example: a Swiss bank’s chief legal officer reported that in seven years of distributing millions in legal fees, only one lawyer had ever asked how they could improve their service.

Education and Development Imperatives

The solution, according to Vaagt, lies in comprehensive education reform emphasising soft skills development alongside technical legal knowledge. Legal education must expand beyond traditional law school curricula to include practical skills development, ideally through direct client interaction via legal clinics and pro bono work.

Future legal practice must embrace deeper client engagement, including genuine understanding of client businesses, industry challenges, and emerging regulatory landscapes. This requires moving beyond transactional relationships toward true partnership and advisory roles.

Evolutionary Enhancement, Not Replacement

Vaagt’s analysis suggests that technological advancement will enhance rather than replace core legal functions. While AI may automate document production and routine research, the essential human elements of legal practice—trust generation, creative problem-solving, ethical guidance, and complex judgement—remain irreplaceably human.

The challenge for the profession lies not in avoiding technological displacement but in developing the interpersonal and consulting capabilities necessary to fully realise lawyers’ potential as trusted advisors and social intermediaries. Success in this transformation demands recognising that being a lawyer encompasses far more than technical legal knowledge—it involves serving as a bridge between legal complexity and human need, generating trust in uncertain environments, and maintaining society’s commitment to justice and fairness.