71% of leaders say junior roles will change. What will a trainee solicitor actually do in five years?

The trainee solicitor role has already changed more than most people realise.

Photocopying bundles, manually searching through authorities and maintaining rooms full of paper files have gradually been replaced by digital case management, online research and electronic documents.

Artificial intelligence could produce a much more fundamental change.

Recent research among leaders across legal, accounting and consulting businesses found that 71% expect junior professional roles to evolve as AI changes the work traditionally performed by people at the beginning of their careers.

The findings, reported by Law360, suggest professional firms are increasingly expecting AI to reshape junior positions rather than simply eliminate them.

For law firms, that creates a practical question.

If the trainee solicitor of 2031 still exists, what will they actually spend their day doing?

We looked at the wider picture recently in our piece on [what happens to junior lawyers when AI does the junior work](/news/junior-lawyers-ai-training-law-firms).

Much of the traditional trainee workload is vulnerable to automation

Look at the tasks traditionally allocated to junior lawyers and it is easy to understand why the role is changing.

Legal research. Document review. Chronologies. Summaries. First drafts. Due diligence. Disclosure exercises. Reviewing contracts for particular provisions. Preparing routine correspondence.

These are exactly the types of activities legal AI developers are attempting to make faster.

That does not mean technology can perform all of them without lawyer involvement. But it can change the amount of human time required.

A disclosure exercise that once required a team of junior lawyers to review thousands of documents may increasingly involve technology identifying and categorising potentially relevant material before lawyers conduct more targeted review.

The work does not disappear completely. The number of people required to perform it could.

Trainees may receive sophisticated work earlier

There is a positive interpretation of this change.

Junior lawyers have long complained that some trainee work is repetitive and provides limited opportunity to develop the skills they actually need.

If AI removes the most mechanical elements, trainees could become involved in more substantive work earlier.

Instead of spending hours preparing a chronology, they might review an AI-generated chronology for gaps and then participate in discussions about what those events mean for the case.

Instead of manually comparing hundreds of contractual provisions, they could spend more time considering which differences create commercial risk.

Instead of producing routine first drafts, they might spend more time improving and challenging drafts produced with AI assistance.

The trainee role could therefore become more intellectually demanding rather than less.

Firms may expect more from junior lawyers

There is another side to that opportunity.

If technology makes juniors more productive, firms may increase their expectations.

A trainee who previously needed an afternoon to research an issue may be expected to produce useful analysis considerably faster.

Junior lawyers could also be expected to understand technology alongside traditional legal skills.

Knowing the law may no longer be enough.

The future trainee might need to know how to use AI effectively, verify its output, understand data risks and recognise when a task should not be delegated to technology.

They may also be expected to demonstrate commercial understanding and client-facing skills earlier because less of their time is occupied by back-office production work.

The entry-level lawyer could therefore become more capable while simultaneously facing a steeper learning curve.

AI literacy could become as fundamental as legal research

Law firms have historically taught trainees how to use professional research platforms, case management systems and document-management software.

AI could become another basic professional competency.

But AI literacy involves more than knowing which prompt to type.

Junior lawyers need to understand limitations. They need to know that a confident answer can still be wrong. They need to verify authorities. They need to recognise confidentiality and data-protection risks. They need to understand which systems have been approved by their firm.

Most importantly, they need to know when human judgement is required.

That distinction may become one of the defining skills of the next generation of lawyers.

Client skills may become important much earlier

One of the more interesting consequences could be greater client exposure.

Junior lawyers traditionally spend significant amounts of time producing work behind the scenes while partners and senior associates manage client relationships.

If AI reduces production time, firms have an opportunity to involve juniors in client-facing work earlier.

That could mean attending more meetings, participating in calls, helping explain issues to clients and gaining a better understanding of the commercial context surrounding legal advice.

These experiences are difficult for AI to replicate. They are also central to becoming a trusted adviser.

A technically excellent lawyer who cannot communicate with clients, understand their priorities or manage difficult conversations has significant limitations.

If technology creates more space for those skills to develop, the future trainee experience could actually improve.

The number of trainees firms need could change

The more difficult question concerns headcount.

Large legal matters have historically required significant numbers of junior lawyers because large volumes of work needed to be completed.

If AI enables a smaller team to process the same volume, firms may eventually need fewer junior people.

That possibility has implications beyond recruitment.

Law firms have traditionally operated as pyramids. A relatively large junior population supports a smaller group of senior associates and partners. That model works partly because junior time itself generates revenue.

If technology reduces the volume of junior billable hours required, firms may reconsider the shape of that pyramid.

Smaller trainee intakes are one possible outcome. Another is maintaining junior numbers but changing the type of work they perform.

Firms cannot simply stop recruiting juniors

There is an obvious long-term problem with dramatically reducing entry-level hiring.

Every senior lawyer was once a junior lawyer.

A firm can avoid training juniors today and recruit experienced lateral lawyers tomorrow. But that strategy only works if somebody else trained those lawyers.

If the profession collectively reduces junior recruitment too far, the result could eventually be a shortage of experienced solicitors.

The problem might not become visible immediately. It could emerge five or ten years later when firms need senior associates, partners and department heads and discover that the cohort below them is considerably smaller.

Workforce planning therefore needs to extend beyond the immediate productivity gains offered by AI.

Training contracts may need redesigning

The structure of training could also change.

The traditional seat system exposes trainees to different departments, with much of their development happening organically through whatever work arises.

That may become less reliable if AI removes particular categories of junior work.

Firms could need more deliberate learning objectives.

A trainee might be required to demonstrate that they can independently research an issue before relying heavily on AI. They might need to critique AI-generated work.

Firms could use simulations based on previous matters. There could be greater emphasis on oral communication, negotiation and client management.

Supervisors may also need to spend more time discussing why decisions were made rather than simply correcting finished work.

Training becomes more intentional.

The best junior lawyers could become much more valuable

There is another possibility that gets less attention.

AI could increase the value of excellent junior lawyers.

A highly capable trainee using technology effectively could potentially produce far more useful work than an equivalent trainee could a decade earlier.

One lawyer may be able to analyse larger datasets, review more material and produce higher-quality initial work.

That could allow talented juniors to take responsibility earlier and progress faster.

The distinction between strong and weak junior lawyers may consequently become less about who can process the greatest volume of routine work and more about who can exercise judgement over technology-assisted output.

Critical thinking becomes more important, not less.

Recruitment criteria may change too

This could eventually affect who firms recruit.

Academic achievement will remain important. But firms may place greater emphasis on adaptability, technology literacy, communication, commercial awareness and judgement.

The ability to memorise large quantities of information becomes less distinctive when technology can retrieve information instantly.

Knowing what question to ask, whether the answer makes sense and what should happen next becomes more valuable.

Recruitment exercises could evolve accordingly.

Future assessment centres may test candidates on their ability to identify problems in AI-generated material rather than simply produce an answer without assistance.

The trainee solicitor is unlikely to disappear

The most plausible future is not a law firm without junior lawyers.

It is a law firm where junior lawyers do different things.

Some repetitive work will remain. Some will be automated. New responsibilities will appear.

Trainees may interact with clients earlier, use sophisticated technology from the beginning of their careers and be expected to contribute judgement sooner.

That could make training more interesting. It could also make it more demanding.

The 71% of professional firm leaders expecting junior roles to evolve may therefore be identifying a much bigger change than a new piece of software arriving in the office.

AI is forcing firms to reconsider what junior professionals are actually there to do.

For law firms, the important question is not whether trainees will still exist in five years.

It is whether firms are redesigning their training now for the work those trainees will actually be doing when they get there.