Image created with Google Gemini
(Inspired by Joshua Olajide’s post: When AI Steals the Joy of Creating)

There’s a unique kind of satisfaction that comes with solving a legal problem — one that few outside the profession truly understand.

It’s not just about finding the “right” law or drafting a contract that works. It’s the process — the hours spent combing through regulations, interpreting court rulings, testing edge cases, spotting risks others might miss, and gradually shaping all of that into a clean, working solution for your client. That’s where the joy lives.

But lately, I’ve felt that joy slipping away.

Not because I’ve lost interest in the work, or because the law has changed. But because the tools have.

AI as a Double-Edged Sword
Don’t get me wrong — I use AI. I even recommend it to clients and colleagues. It's fast, efficient, and surprisingly insightful. Whether it's summarizing case law, drafting contract clauses, or generating tax-compliant structures in seconds, AI does things in minutes that used to take hours.

And yet… something feels missing.

There used to be a thrill in discovering the perfect clause buried in a model contract from another jurisdiction, or finding an obscure tax exemption that unlocks the ideal setup for a startup. There was a deep sense of satisfaction in comparing approaches, weighing risks, and choosing the right legal instrument — not just a correct one.

Now? One prompt, and I get five “good enough” answers instantly.

Clarity? Yes. But at what cost?

The Missing Middle
In his brilliant post on the creative process, Joshua Olajide described what he called the messy middle — the part of creating where you wrestle with uncertainty, follow rabbit holes, get lost, get stuck, and come out the other side with something that’s not only complete but yours.

Legal work has its own messy middle too.

It’s not just law. It’s logic, context, and judgment. It's the 3 a.m. Google Scholar rabbit hole. The diagram you sketch out five different times on paper before it makes sense. The moment when a vague clause becomes a bulletproof protection because you finally understand what it needs to do — and why.

AI shortcuts all of that. But when it skips the struggle, it often skips the pride, too.

Law Without the Journey
When I draft a contract with AI now, I sometimes feel like a bystander to my own work. The document may be technically correct. But I didn’t build it. I curated it.

There’s less mental wrestling, less “aha,” less satisfaction. And when something goes wrong, there’s less confidence — because I didn’t walk the whole path myself.

This isn’t an anti-AI rant. I genuinely believe AI is an amazing co-pilot. It helps spot mistakes. It sharpens language. It opens doors I might’ve missed. But the key is in that word: co-pilot. If I hand over the controls entirely, I lose not only the journey — but the reason I became a lawyer in the first place.

Reclaiming the Craft
Law is more than information. It’s interpretation, application, and intent.

When I solve a legal problem on my own, I walk away not just with a result — but with ownership. When AI gives me a ready-made solution, I may get the answer faster, but I lose the learning, the depth, the spark.

Joshua’s post reminded me that this quiet tradeoff — speed for soul — isn’t just happening in the arts. It’s happening in legal work, too. And just like in the creative world, the solution isn’t to reject the tools. It’s to reclaim the process.

The Human is the Point
From now on, I’m choosing to start with my own messy drafts — even if AI could do it faster. I’ll ask it for help, but only after I’ve wrestled with the core issue myself. I’ll use it to test, not to replace.

Because at the end of the day, I don’t want to just deliver legal work. I want to own it.

And I want to keep feeling that quiet pride — not just in what I create, but in how I create it.