AI exposure in legal occupations
7 occupations, 124 tasks, scored against the capability frontier of 2026-09-15. This family ranks 13 of 22 by median exposed share.
Reading this family
computedThe median legal occupation has 22.0% of its weighted task load in work current AI systems can already produce, which is 2.3 points below the median across every occupation in the index. Weighted by how many people actually do these jobs, the figure is 26.5%, across 1,258,860 US workers. 2 of these occupations fall in the exposed band, 2 in assisted and 3 in untouched.
What holds the line across this family is accountability, at 2.43 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions here. In plain terms the obstacle is a name on the line. Someone licensed or legally liable has to sign. The machine can draft the work; it cannot carry the consequence of being wrong about it.
The spread inside the family is wider than the gap between families, which is the usual pattern and the reason this index does not publish a single number per group. Title Examiners, Abstractors, and Searchers sits at 49.5%. Judges, Magistrate Judges, and Magistrates sits at 8.2%. Both are legal occupations, and 41.3 points separate them.
Where the family score comes from
judgedMeans across all 124 tasks in this family. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 2.03 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 0.64 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 1.47 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 2.43 | 0-3 |
| Context | 2.12 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 2.40 | 0-3 |
Every legal occupation
See them on the chart| Occupation | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Median pay | Tasks | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Title Examiners, Abstractors, and Searchers | 49.5% | 30.1% | 20.4% | $58,650 | 17 | exposed |
| Judicial Law Clerks | 37.0% | 31.2% | 31.9% | $64,920 | 18 | exposed |
| Paralegals and Legal Assistants | 33.6% | 32.8% | 33.6% | $62,890 | 12 | assisted |
| Lawyers | 22.0% | 32.0% | 46.0% | $159,670 | 22 | assisted |
| Arbitrators, Mediators, and Conciliators | 18.2% | 23.7% | 58.1% | $75,530 | 20 | untouched |
| Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers | 17.3% | 19.3% | 63.3% | $117,860 | 14 | untouched |
| Judges, Magistrate Judges, and Magistrates | 8.2% | 10.7% | 81.1% | $153,990 | 21 | untouched |
Exposure is not displacement. These figures say what current systems can produce and what stands in the way. They do not say anyone will stop paying a person to do the work. How the score is built.