Sean Burke spoke to Law.com’s Michael Gennaro about Microsoft’s sweeping legal department layoffs—and what they signal about AI’s growing role in reshaping in-house legal staffing.
Burke noted that the attorneys most at risk are those in the early-to-mid stages of their careers, as tech companies increasingly leverage AI to replace routine legal work.
“My guess is that the lion’s share of laid-off attorneys at Microsoft are in the bottom tranche, lawyers three to seven years out of law school that are more easily replaced,” Burke said. “One lawyer harnessing the power of AI might be able to do a volume of work that used to require three or four lawyers.”
According to Burke, tech companies are far outpacing law firms in adopting AI—developing proprietary tools to automate tasks like contract review, while traditional firms remain tied to the inefficiencies of the billable hour.
“We do a lot of work with AI startups in the legal tech space,” Burke said. “And 9 out of 10 of them say the same thing: ‘We’re building AI for companies. We’re not focusing on AI for law firms, because law firms—they’re just not going to be quick to adopt AI.’”