> For contracts, I was thinking of the more complex deals where a battle-tested template is unavailable

But this is the exception, not the rule because most people are not engaging in "complex" deals that require completely bespoke contracts. The average individual or company needs roughly the same things almost every other individual or company needs and a LegalZoom template is going to be perfectly usable for the 99%, ideally with a final pass by an experienced attorney.

What you're paying for when you do have a "complex" deal is the negotiation and structuring, and that's where the experience of the attorney is all the value.

> The issue about halting the training pipeline is an interesting one. In law firms, a lot of "training" of young lawyers is really glorified bates-stamping charged out at professional rates. I think we could find that the work just gets more substantive and interesting.

You can't run before you know how to walk. I don't know how a new associate becomes the next Clarence Darrow, Johnnie Cochran, or David Boies without thorough exposure to the often-boring basics: legal research, document drafting, document review, organizing and sorting documents, sitting in on calls and depositions, etc.

If clients aren't willing to subsidize these types of activities and firms have to look to automate more to maintain their profitability in the face of cost pressures, the development model breaks down long-term.