Architecting our Legal Future with Dan Hunter

This week we sat down with Dan Hunter, Executive Dean of the Dickson Poon School of Law at King's College London and serial legal tech entrepreneur. 

Dan's journey spans academia across three continents, four successful startups (including his current venture GraceView), and decades of research on the cognitive science of legal reasoning. As both an educator training the next generation of lawyers and an entrepreneur building AI-powered legal solutions, he offers a unique dual perspective on the transformation underway across knowledge work.

Key Takeaways

1. The Learning Paradox: AI Makes Us Feel Smarter While Making Us Dumber

Students using large language models consistently perform better on assignments and believe they're learning more - but when the AI is removed, they've retained virtually nothing. This creates a dangerous illusion of competence (sycophantic models propagate this!) that law schools and firms must address through new assessment methods and training approaches.

2. We're Heading Toward a "Barbell" Legal Profession

Traditional pyramid law firm structures will collapse as AI automates much of the work. Dan believes the future involves senior lawyers managing client relationships at the top, AI agents handling routine tasks in the middle, and "legal engineers" swarming around validating AI outputs and steering the models.

3. Entry-Level Legal Jobs Are Already Disappearing

We discuss the recent Stanford research "Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence" by Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar, and Ruyu Chen, Stanford Digital Economy Lab (2025) - The landmark study using ADP payroll data showing 13% employment decline for young workers in AI-exposed occupations.

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