AI could sweep away the power end of the legal market but it’s no match for a top divorce lawyer, says Ayesha Vardag

AI is the buzzword of the moment. It’s in our phones, our homes, our courtrooms – and now, it seems, it’s coming for our professions. Even mine.

As someone who has spent a career at the sharp end of family law, handling some of the most complex and high-value divorces in Britain and internationally, I don’t approach AI with fear. I approach it with fascination. I’ve tested it, challenged it, even tried to trip it up. And yes, it’s clever – sometimes startlingly so. But it’s not ready to take over the kind of work I do. Not unless you’re comfortable entrusting your financial future, your children and your reputation to a system that can only tell you what’s already been said and not what’s possible.

Recently, my husband and our CEO, Stephen Bence, ran a fictitious but realistic sophisticated query through one of the leading AI platforms. The result was mixed. It grasped the general principles but missed key legal subtleties – the kind of details that, in our world, can determine the outcome of a case and profoundly affect a client’s future. Specifically, it failed to consider an important alternative jurisdiction that........

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