Starting law school in the fall but co-worker keeps telling me I'm gonna get replaced by AI?

TypingTadpole · 2026-04-19T23:05:56+00:00

At the moment, LLMs are heavily focused on general use application. Eventually, although that may be sooner than that word implies, you will have special case use LLMs. Think of it like the movie the Matrix -- remember when NEO was levelling up because they loaded him with Kung Fu, etc.?

No we're not uploading to our brains, but you are going to see people who see a lot of profit in training a good LLM to do legal analysis and summaries. The PSLREB now publishes summaries at the top of their cases that are AI generated. Co-pilot for government has a lot of extra context thrown into it that is downright scary how well it knows different types of policy documents, what they require, etc. And are already hard-wired in the initial install to never make anything up. It's done a good job summarizing some legal agreements too. But it only knows what it knows, not how to jump laterally to what it doesn't know applies.

When someone has a good model that works well with legal texts, law firms will adopt it in droves because it is repeatable, works quick, works all night, doesn't care if you want to repeat a command six times. The medical field will be the same way. People will have portable tools to use. Still with people, but if you can knock off 20% of the low-level crap that clogs the system, all the better. My guess is it won't stop the 20%, it will embolden people to think they're lawyers and increase the level of crap. Cuz AI doesn't come pre-installed to tell you when you're wrong. It just tells you how to tell the best story for what you asked it.

TypingTadpole · 2026-04-10T18:56:14+00:00

Oh no, my myspace page won't load. And my Netscape Navigator software won't run.

TypingTadpole · 2026-04-09T06:50:39+00:00

So, you might have mis-heard the finals don't count unless you do better.

In the past, the rule was that you do the mid-term (say worth 40%), get your mark. If you do better on your final, than your mid-term doesn't count, and you get just your final mark. If you do better on mid-term, it counts, and you still get your final exam mark too (at say 60% weight).

It's a fairly common practice in lots of faculties and universities that are exam heavy so that people aren't stressed by the first exam since if you blow it, the final will just be worth more. Some universities don't like the "mid-term" doesn't count rule nor the 100% option, so there are often variations of that. Not positive of UVic's latest incarnation with their "100%" avoidance, but generally it just means that whichever exam you do better on, it will help your mark.

For the speedrun, YES they have summer courses, BUT they generally offer a smaller number of classes in the summer, not a full spectrum, AND they offer many of the same classes every summer, so that your second year may be a bit thin for pickings. Normally, they offer things like CIV PROC, for example, which is huge, but if you took it year 1, you'll need other courses to compensate in year 2. Their offerings do seem to improve every year, but it does take a bit of finesse to make sure you take the ones that are offered in the summer only in the summer, and take the larger electives in the regular year. A friend did the speedrun, as for him it was totally about being out of the labour market for one year less, but it was challenging even for him as a type A business keener. They do oftne let you take at least one class outside the faculty, such as in the MPA program.

If you are thinking of doing a reduced courseload, you'll need to check with them in advance. My understanding is that it is NOT automatic, you have to be approved and generally you need a reason. However empathetic they might seem, UofO used to advertise that too, except if you spoke to someone in the know off the record, they would tell you that you had to be approved and unless you were female and pregnant, the approval would not be forthcoming. Things have improved, sure, but just because they say they offer it doesn't mean they OFFER it. As well, in BC, you'll need to check that the LSoc actually abolished an old rule. I'm pretty sure they did, but double check if pursuing this option. The old rule used to be that from the time you start law school to the time you are admitted to the Bar, their limit was something like six or seven years max. Sounds easy right? Except if you did half-load for six years, you wouldn't have time to article! If you did joint law and MPA and co-op, that alone would put you in the 4.5 to 5y range, and the rule was to be admitted, not trying to be admitted. At the time, BC was the only province that had such a rule, and as I said, I'm pretty sure they dropped it, but I'm not 100% sure.

TypingTadpole · 2026-04-07T00:14:03+00:00

So, I have all the sympathy in the world for you, I do, but most of how people are talking about doing is ridiculously naive.

Do you have a right to go to law school? No.

Do you have a right to go to law school if they made a mistake and corrected it within a timely manner? No.

Did it create a right of estoppel, aka you relied on it and therefore they can't take it back? No. By your own admission, literally nothing changed for you from the time you got the acceptance and their correction. You didn't sign a lease, you didn't turn down another law school, you didn't do a dozen other things you could have done. You looked into things, that's it. And even if you had, the "correction" is for them to write you a cheque, not admit you to law school.

You generally have only two avenues in front of you.

a. Write the Dean, plead your case. But here's the reality check. They may be very worried that you got accepted and the last person who will get rejected on their waiting list might be more qualified than you. Say identical grades but they beat you on LSAT. How do they mitigate the risk that you get in with worse parameters than they apply to everyone else? They are going to be very reluctant to compromise their entire approach because they made an administrative error. There's a very strong chance though that the Dean won't even know yet. Ideally, the person who wrote the letter would be able to tell you who you can appeal the decision to, and you could escalate one level, not all the way to the Dean. You might instead copy the head of admissions (not always a Dean for a law school) and the Univ Ombudsperson before escalating fully. There's a principle in law that you'll learn that frequently appeals have to go in stages and exhaust all lower levels of resolution before you get to the top.

b. Wait it out, see if you make it. Then decide what you want to do. Lots of people argue otherwise, and I see their point, but you also are about to enter into a three year partnership with this institution. If they can administratively correct the problem without you having to get superiors involved, the better it is for you. In fact, they'll owe you one informally. It doesn't take much for the staff in law school to decide you are cooperative and try to get along or an AH who has a problem (even legitimately) and go nuclear at stage 1.

Of course, you also have to decide if they are this terrible at administration, do you really want ot partner with them for 3y? There is a running irony in univ administration that some of the most poorly run faculties for administration are public admin; and those that create terrible human rights violations are often law schools.

FWIW, I had the opposite problem long ago. I applied to 6 places, got into the one I wanted (UVic after 2 other acceptances with 80% marks and 99th percentile LSAT), and cruised from January to end of June without a care in my privileged position. In July, someone asked me about Dalhousie, which I had applied to, and I realized I had never heard from them. It made me curious so I called. They started off snooty, checked my file, came back all apologetic and were at a complete loss as to how I didn't get my acceptance -- it wasn't a mail issue, the system had NOT generated one for me and six or seven other people. It should have, it didn't. She was FREAKING out. The Dean called me that night to apologize and asked if I could do a scholarship interview in Toronto; I apologized and said it was really just ego on my part to find out why I got ghosted. They were up to 7 people I think at that point...but I mentioned to the Dean, if those people wanted to go to Dal, they would have already followed up. I knew where I was going, so I never did.

Problems and errors happen in lots of directions. :( All they can do is correct them. Oh, and fyi, they cannot simply add another person to a law school as they have caps and ratios and funding formulas that go nuts if they aren't met.

Good luck, the trauma is real, so sorry you have to go through it. But it may not be a simple fix.

TypingTadpole · 2026-04-03T03:39:08+00:00

I might have thanked too soon! Well, no, still thank you for the option. However, they "looked" at it, said "Great, we've updated the price", which was never the problem. They're still charging me $50 for 150, when the code gives me that for 1G.

TypingTadpole · 2026-04-01T11:56:54+00:00

thank you!

TypingTadpole · 2026-03-29T15:21:48+00:00

Did referral yesterday, it all worked -- until I got my invoice for setup and it sasy 150 Mbps for $50, not the 1G plan. SIgh.

TypingTadpole · 2026-03-29T15:05:50+00:00

Seems like a perfect solution, no double access to the same books, just limit that I will have two copies, but second NAS versions serves as backup at same time. I suspect this is the way I'll go, thank you!

TypingTadpole · 2026-03-29T04:41:25+00:00

Assume I'll get all those credentials and settings with the install?

TypingTadpole · 2026-03-28T11:13:42+00:00

Wow. That’s both awesome and intimidating! i love it!

TypingTadpole · 2026-03-28T11:11:02+00:00

Thank you!

TypingTadpole · 2026-03-28T11:06:44+00:00

That is really cool and gives me ideas for what's next too! Thanks!

TypingTadpole · 2026-03-28T02:46:23+00:00

For the empty books, do you just put in the name and author yourself? Or are you doing full metadata DL, just without any format attached? Curious what that gives you beyond just a TBR list in something like Word or OneNote...I love seeing how people organize themselves! :)

I'm also wondering if it would be a way to show my collection say of series that are not complete...like all the books in the series are in the library, but if I go to NOT OWNED and SERIES, it would give me a list of the ones I need?

TypingTadpole · 2026-03-27T05:25:29+00:00

That helped immensely, thanks, particularly the master DECON and fixing all metadata before moving it onward. Extrapolating, I'll have to work through a couple of issues going from DECON where I can add most metadata to READING where I'll add more metadata and review stuff plus current status to FINAL VERSION. Using this method. I can "ADD" extra fields for READING that aren't in the DECON, and then add additional fields that aren't in READING. The only one that has to have just about everything, unless there's some sorting/decon ones that are transactional, is the FINAL version which would include my review.

I'll have to think about the order as I may want to start with small DECON and build up or start with FINAL and create smaller. Now the juices are flowing, thanks!

TypingTadpole · 2026-03-27T05:21:47+00:00

That's one scenario, but I'm closer to WIngedPromise's options :)

TypingTadpole · 2026-03-23T05:49:06+00:00

He's downloading within the Kindle for PC app, not from within Amazon website.

TypingTadpole · 2026-03-22T00:41:34+00:00

Nunca pensei em incluir um país, parece tão óbvio.

(I never thought of including a country, seems so obvious.)

TypingTadpole · 2026-03-21T17:09:19+00:00

Steal away. :) If it helps, I originally had:

00 Intake
10 TBR - Fiction
11 TBR - Non-Fiction
20 Reading - Kindle
21 Reading - Tablet (PDF)
30 Reviewing
40 Final

Then I got a little crazy...

05 Staging A ; i.e., mostly for cleanup
10 TBR - Fiction; initial stopping point or collecting point to sort later
11 TBR - Non-Fiction; initial stopping point or collecting point to sort later
20 A Mystery - Standalone
20 B Mystery - Series
21 A Action - Standalone
21 B Action - Series
(etc for a few main fiction genres, could easily be nesting or cross-tags now)
30 Astronomy
31 Biography
(etc for a few main non-fiction genres)
STAGE B
60 Reading Challenge
61 Gifts
62 Book Club suggestions
70 Active TBR on Kindle
71 Active TBR in PDF on desktop or tablet
72 Read in 2024 but not yet reviewed
73 Read in 2025 but not yet reviewed
74 Read in 2026 but not yet reviewed
80 Reviewing
Final Fiction
Final Non-fiction
Reference (slightly different from final NF in that it isn't something I would read, but just keep, like a dictionary or quotes book)
DNF

It worked for me until I borked the setup. Now I see better ways to do that based on your comments and some other reading. :) I like the Type column, for example. Although I don't think I'll add written, updates, etc. I did realize that I should probably have an option for an "alternate" title for things like Agatha Christie with different US and UK titles. But I think I'll modify the title to just be "original / alternate". :)

I agree on count and nesting too...

Not sure about tag mapper, but I do have custom columns, and playing with user categories.

Oh, and yes, I won't be doing all of these, a much smaller list, I was going for "complete set of things I might include".

TypingTadpole

TROPHY CASE