Generative artificial intelligence could change more than how lawyers conduct research, draft documents and serve clients. It also could disrupt the way new attorneys are hired and paid.
Michael Hornzell, an assistant professor of law at the Wilmington University Farnan School of Law, explores that possibility in “Trouble With the Salary Curve: Generative AI’s Challenge to the Bimodal Distribution of Entry-Level Lawyer Pay.”
Accepted for publication by the Connecticut Law Review, the piece examines the unusual structure of entry-level lawyer salaries, which tend to cluster at opposite ends of the pay scale rather than around a common midpoint. Hornzell considers how generative AI could alter that long-standing pattern by changing the work traditionally assigned to new lawyers and the value employers place on entry-level positions.
For law students preparing to enter the profession, the issue is immediate. As firms and legal organizations adopt AI tools, graduates could encounter a job market significantly different from the one that previous generations entered.
In another recent article, “The Big Shortage: Affordable Housing,” published in Volume 55, Issue 2, of the University of Baltimore Law Review, Hornzell examines the nation’s shortage of affordable housing.
Although the subjects differ, both articles explore how broader economic and social forces affect people in tangible ways. One focuses on access to housing; the other considers how technology could influence employment and compensation in the legal profession.
Those interests also carry into Hornzell’s work in the classroom.
A member of the Farnan School of Law faculty since it welcomed the inaugural class in August 2023, Hornzell teaches Property, Legal Writing, and AI and the Law. He also serves as faculty adviser to the Student Bar Association. His courses allow students to study both the foundations of legal education and the developments reshaping the profession they are preparing to enter.
Hornzell began law school at the University of Baltimore, where his first-year academic performance enabled him to transfer to Harvard Law School. He later earned his Juris Doctor cum laude from Harvard.
At the Farnan School of Law, Hornzell’s scholarship and teaching share a common focus: how the law responds as technology, markets and public needs evolve. His latest work raises a question that could shape the early careers of future lawyers: When artificial intelligence changes the work, will it also change what that work is worth?
—Maria Hess
Want to read more in-depth stories? Explore our latest magazine articles.
Generative artificial intelligence could change more than how lawyers conduct research, draft documents and serve clients. It also could disrupt the way new attorneys are hired and paid.
Michael Hornzell, an assistant professor of law at the Wilmington University Farnan School of Law, explores that possibility in “Trouble With the Salary Curve: Generative AI’s Challenge to the Bimodal Distribution of Entry-Level Lawyer Pay.”
Accepted for publication by the Connecticut Law Review, the piece examines the unusual structure of entry-level lawyer salaries, which tend to cluster at opposite ends of the pay scale rather than around a common midpoint. Hornzell considers how generative AI could alter that long-standing pattern by changing the work traditionally assigned to new lawyers and the value employers place on entry-level positions.
For law students preparing to enter the profession, the issue is immediate. As firms and legal organizations adopt AI tools, graduates could encounter a job market significantly different from the one that previous generations entered.
In another recent article, “The Big Shortage: Affordable Housing,” published in Volume 55, Issue 2, of the University of Baltimore Law Review, Hornzell examines the nation’s shortage of affordable housing.
Although the subjects differ, both articles explore how broader economic and social forces affect people in tangible ways. One focuses on access to housing; the other considers how technology could influence employment and compensation in the legal profession.
Those interests also carry into Hornzell’s work in the classroom.
A member of the Farnan School of Law faculty since it welcomed the inaugural class in August 2023, Hornzell teaches Property, Legal Writing, and AI and the Law. He also serves as faculty adviser to the Student Bar Association. His courses allow students to study both the foundations of legal education and the developments reshaping the profession they are preparing to enter.
Hornzell began law school at the University of Baltimore, where his first-year academic performance enabled him to transfer to Harvard Law School. He later earned his Juris Doctor cum laude from Harvard.
At the Farnan School of Law, Hornzell’s scholarship and teaching share a common focus: how the law responds as technology, markets and public needs evolve. His latest work raises a question that could shape the early careers of future lawyers: When artificial intelligence changes the work, will it also change what that work is worth?
—Maria Hess
Want to read more in-depth stories? Explore our latest magazine articles.
