In an op-ed penned for The Business Times, Stefanie Yuen Thio casts the AI wave in law not as a distant disruption, but as an existential moment for the profession. Writing in response to Law Minister Edwin Tong’s speech at The Next Charter: Shaping Singapore’s Legal Future Together conference in early March to nearly 900 lawyers, our Joint Managing Partner argues that AI is already reshaping legal work, from drafting and due diligence to legal research, and that much of the simpler, automatable work that once sustained junior lawyers and trained them for more complex practice will disappear.

Her argument is that lawyers must stop resisting and start redefining their value. AI, she suggests, is becoming the “super-associate” that can handle much of the technical heavy lifting, meaning clients will increasingly pay not for hours worked but for strategic judgement, bespoke advice and trusted relationships. She also points to a levelling effect for smaller firms, which could use AI tools to deliver work once requiring larger teams, even as the wider industry is forced to rethink billing models, training and legal education.

But the heart of the op-ed is her insistence that the legal profession still has a distinctly human function that AI cannot replace. Because AI works from precedent and probability rather than moral judgement, she warns that it can reproduce bias and cannot decide what ought to be done. In Stefanie’s view, lawyers must embrace AI not just to stay commercially relevant, but to preserve access to justice and to “hold the ethical line” in a profession where ethics, trust and courage remain irreducibly human.