Questioning Everything We Think We Know About AI in Law ft. Daniel Schwarcz
Between the Briefs · 2026-06-04 · 43 min
Episode notes
The impact of AI on law has been studied through the narrow lens of productivity and profitability. But the reality is much broader than that. In this episode of Between the Briefs by Steno, Adrian Cea and Joe Stephens welcome back Daniel Schwarcz, Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School to discuss groundbreaking empirical research on how AI impacts lawyer performance, legal reasoning and long-term professional development. What You’ll Learn: How to move beyond benchmarking studies to measure what actually matters Why reasoning models and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) platforms deliver measurable improvements The counterintuitive finding that using AI for research strengthens independent legal reasoning when AI is unavailable How litigation work benefits more measurably from current AI tools than transactional work The critical distinction between confidentiality risks and genuine professional concerns Why high-valuation legal tech firms like Harvey and Legora face competitive pressure from accessible alternatives This episode challenges everything we think we know about AI’s cognitive impact on lawyers and their practice.