AI Lawyers Closer Than We Thought: 45% Success Rate Shakes Legal World

Just a month ago, lawyers could sleep easy. AI models were bombing legal benchmarks with scores under 25%, suggesting the legal profession was safe from automation. But AI doesn't follow human timelines.

The Month That Changed Everything

Anthropic's latest release, Opus 4.6, just rewrote the playbook. The model scored 29.8% on Mercor's professional legal benchmark in single attempts, jumping to an average of 45% when given multiple tries. That's a leap from 18.4% just months ago—what Mercor CEO Brendan Foody called "insane" progress.

The secret sauce? "Agent swarms"—multiple AI agents working together to tackle complex, multi-step legal problems. It's like having a team of junior associates collaborating, but without the coffee breaks.

What 45% Really Means

Forty-five percent isn't perfect, but it's dangerously competent. Consider what legal work involves: contract review, case research, document drafting, regulatory compliance. These tasks don't require 100% accuracy to be valuable—they require being faster and cheaper than human alternatives.

For routine legal work, AI is crossing the threshold from "interesting experiment" to "serious threat." Law firms are already integrating AI tools for document review and legal research. The question isn't whether AI will handle these tasks, but how quickly human lawyers will be priced out.

The Disruption Playbook Unfolds

We've seen this movie before. First, AI handles the grunt work. Then it moves upstream to more complex tasks. Finally, it transforms entire industries. Legal services are following the classic disruption pattern, just faster than anyone expected.

Small law firms and solo practitioners might benefit first—AI could democratize legal services, making basic legal help affordable for individuals and small businesses. But large firms face a different calculus: why hire junior associates for document review when AI can do it 24/7 without salary demands?

The legal education system also faces questions. If AI handles entry-level legal work, how do new lawyers gain experience? Law schools may need to rethink curricula, focusing more on client relations, strategic thinking, and AI collaboration rather than traditional legal research skills.

The Human Elements That Remain

Not every legal task is automatable. Courtroom advocacy, client counseling, and complex strategic decisions still require human judgment, empathy, and creativity. The lawyers who thrive will be those who complement AI capabilities rather than compete with them.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: the legal profession's value has long been tied to information asymmetry and specialized knowledge. As AI democratizes legal information and basic services, lawyers must find new ways to add value.

The legal profession's reckoning with AI isn't coming—it's here. The only question is whether lawyers will shape this transformation or be shaped by it.