At the turn of the 20th century, citizens were confronted with a terrifying new technology that threatened to upend society and transform a multitude of industries. Automobiles—originally known as “horseless carriages”—had appeared on the consumer market and threatened to replace horses as the dominant method of transportation. It was not a welcome innovation for large segments of the population.
During summer 1905, violent mobs in New York City attacked automobiles with such intensity that police officers were deployed along thoroughfares to protect motorists. Farmers in Rochester, Minnesota, sabotaged roads, making them impassable to automobiles. Doctors wrote to their local papers warning that the medical establishment did not yet know what could happen to the human body if it traveled at the blazingly fast speed of 12 miles per hour. And the chancellor of Syracuse University warned that young men were beginning to delay marriage in favor of purchasing these new contraptions. The situation seemed grim, and legislators throughout the country rushed to pass laws and regulations governing this new technology.
But the story of the transition from horses to automobiles in American society is not a story highlighting the importance of law. It is a story about how consumer preference and industry preference, rather than law, drive moments of profound societal transformation. Indeed, while a significant number of citizens initially resisted the introduction of automobiles, the transition from nearly all horses to nearly all cars on U.S. roads only took about 10 years in urban areas throughout the country, a stunningly fast change, particularly for that time.
While people may have complained loudly about the new beastly machines at first, once their neighbors and business competitors brought one home and they saw how much faster and more efficient they were, they did the only logical thing: They bought automobiles themselves. The transition was, in fact, so fast and so complete that no jurisdiction I can find ever had to pass a law banning travel by horse on public roads. By the time the (literal and figurative) dust had cleared, virtually no one had any interest in doing so.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the transition from horses to automobiles this year as I’ve sat through countless faculty meetings and presentations about what artificial intelligence will mean for law practice. Half the people to whom I’ve listened seem convinced that AI is a passing fad, and that what legal education and law practice need is a doubling down on traditional pedagogy and litigation strategies. They view AI as a threat to all they hold dear. The other half are convinced that AI will overhaul virtually everything, and that all we can do is hold on tight and try to adapt as best we can.
I find myself taking an increasingly pragmatic, albeit mildly cynical, view: I don’t think it matters what any of us think about AI; I think what matters significantly more is what mattered at the turn of the 20th century—what consumer preference and the market will demand over time. Law schools can reject AI altogether, but if, three years from now, law firms strongly prefer to hire law grads with AI training, law schools will either be able to provide those grads or face rapidly diminishing employment rates.
Law firms can hold the line on use of AI in practice, but if their competitors begin using AI tools to increase their efficiency, improve their output and litigate cases more effectively, I don’t see how they can hold out for long. Recent polling shows that law firms already understand this dilemma. In a 2024 survey conducted by Thomson Reuters, 79% of law firms reported using AI, up from just 19% in 2023. That rate of adoption far outpaces the decade-long transition from horses to cars.
Legal ethics may also force the hands of those most resistant to AI among us. Thirteen years ago, when I left private practice and became a law professor, there were still legal writing professors teaching students how to look up cases and check their ongoing validity in hard copy reporters as an alternative to using one of the online legal research services.
Today, I think there is a strong argument to be made that checking the validity of a case via book borders on malpractice: The hardbound reporters are not updated nearly as often as the online databases, meaning they are significantly less reliable. Ten years from now, will failure to use AI in preparation of a legal brief constitute malpractice, as well? Will clients be willing to pay for attorneys to spend 12 hours accomplishing something that AI can do in 15 minutes?
In moments of profound transition like this one, only highly agile institutions capable of experimenting, pivoting, reassessing, adapting and then repeating that process again and again will come out on top. I am no longer interested in long debates about whether AI is “good” or “bad.” I think it’s a fool’s errand to attempt to exert high levels of control over the coming transition in the institutions of which I am a part.
I am convinced it is naïve to believe that appeals to tradition and older standards of excellence will save us. I am interested in doing whatever I can to help my law students navigate this environment. I am eager to rethink legal education in a way that maintains excellence while also embracing the bold new world of legal practice. I am excited about what attorneys will be able to do five years from now that they cannot do now.
It’s time to stop standing on the sidewalk throwing rocks at whatever new AI capabilities are now available to the public. Sabotaging the roads will not slow the pace of change. More law and more regulations will likely do little to shape the emerging AI era.
The change from horses to automobiles was abrupt and revolutionary, but it’s likely something you haven’t thought about much unless you’ve found yourselves on the scenic roads of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, passing a horse-drawn buggy in your (increasingly autonomous) car. Twenty years from now, the same will be true about AI-driven law practice. The question is whether we can get there intact or whether our resistance to change will send us out to pasture and relegate us to watching the rest of the world speed by.
Tracy Hresko Pearl is professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. She researches and writes in the areas of law and technology, criminal procedure and torts. Before becoming an academic, she was an associate at Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C., and a law clerk for judges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
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