Who Defines Your Association’s Future?

A few days ago, I took an Uber ride from my hotel to the airport.

The driver was a nice guy in his mid-20s. He was chatty. (Looked a lot like the man in the photo.)

I learned he had a college degree and been through three jobs the first two years out of school. He just left the last one – working in a call center – to start driving for Uber.

He’s driving for Uber so he can study for the LSAT and hopes to start law school in January.

I asked him what kind of law interested him. Did he know what kind of work he wanted to do?

He shared how much he LOVES reading cases.

He wants to be on the research team for a law firm where he’ll do the research to help prepare for the cases. He doesn’t want to do the live trial work.

I asked him what he thought about AI in the legal field.

How he saw Ross, who can comb through cases and produce a brief with citations in mere seconds, as impacting his future career?

He was stumped.

He had not heard about AI doing lawyer work. And was quite certain AIs would not do the research kind of work he knew he loved to do.

I gently mentioned (I still needed to get to the airport!) that Ross, the AI, had been working at law firms for over a year now – doing the work he loved.

He looked at me and demanded to know if it was true about Ross, why didn’t he see changes in law school programs?

He has explored attending law school for six years – and didn’t notice any big changes. Why didn’t any AI impact show up in the promotions for law schools?

He was getting upset – and I really did need to catch my plane – so I simply agreed with him that he asked a great question.

The man is about to invest tens of thousands of dollars and at least four years of his life with the dream of doing a job that may barely exist when he comes out the other side.

I can’t imagine going back to school to go into a new field without exploring the potential impact all the disruptive technology and specifically AI will have on it.

Makes me think of your association…

Who is responsible for designing the future of your association?

How well versed are they on what is happening in your field – today and potentially in the future?

Where do they fall on the spectrum of being in denial and firmly committed to how it’s always been vs. being excited about all that can be?

It’s hard to create a successful future if you don’t embrace the future.

– Cynthia

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