RetrainMap / Pivot Audits / Lawyers

The Pivot Audit · verified 2026-08-15

Lawyers: an honest AI-exposure audit

Represent clients in criminal and civil litigation and other legal proceedings, draw up legal documents, or manage or advise clients on legal transactions. May specialize in a single area or may practice broadly in many areas of law.

How to read this page (the honest frame)
864,800
employed, US (2024) — BLS via O*NET OnLine, fetched 2026-08-15
$159,670
median annual wage (2025) — BLS OEWS via O*NET OnLine
Average (3% to 4%)
BLS projected employment change 2024–34 · projected openings/yr: 31,500
90th
AI-exposure percentile, of 774 scored occupations — Felten–Raj–Seamans AIOE (2021 index)

The sources disagree — read this before the score scares you. The AIOE index puts this occupation at the 90th exposure percentile, yet BLS projects “Average (3% to 4%)” employment change for 2024–34. Both are published numbers from serious sources; neither is a prediction about your job. A product that shows you only the scary one is selling, not informing.

USAGE

What the AI-usage data actually shows

#38
usage rank of 718 published occupations, by share of observed Claude usage matching this occupation's tasks
0.62%
of observed usage matches tasks commonly done in this occupation
69/31
augmentation vs automation split of those conversations, %

Read this correctly: it measures how often tasks like this occupation's appear in Claude conversations — not how many members of the occupation use AI; “augmentation vs automation” describes conversation styles, not job outcomes. Snapshot of period 2026-05-01; no trend exists. Source: Anthropic Economic Index (CC BY 4.0), retrieved 2026-08-15. The dataset's own instruction: it “cannot ground advice on career choices in either direction.”

AUDIT

What the “related occupations” pivot list really offers

Pivot tools — free and paid — typically recommend O*NET's related occupations for your job. Here is that exact list for Lawyers, with each occupation's AI-exposure percentile attached. Judge the escape value yourself.

Zero of the 19 scored “related occupations” for this job sit below the median of AI exposure. The skills-adjacent pivot list for this occupation is sideways-or-worse — not because we say so, but because relatedness is shared task content, and exposure is a function of task content.

1 of the 20 related occupations carry no AIOE score (2018-SOC codes newer than the index) — an honest gap, labeled in the table.

#Related occupation (O*NET 30.3)AI-exposure percentile (AIOE)
1Judicial Law Clerks99th
2Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers95th
3Judges, Magistrate Judges, and Magistrates99th
4Arbitrators, Mediators, and Conciliators98th
5Equal Opportunity Representatives and Officers66th
6Claims Adjusters, Examiners, and Investigators86th
7Law Teachers, Postsecondary94th
8Labor Relations Specialists91st
9Fraud Examiners, Investigators and Analysts94th
10Chief Executives91st
11Paralegals and Legal Assistants87th
12Legal Secretaries and Administrative Assistants75th
13Court, Municipal, and License Clerks82nd
14Private Detectives and Investigators68th
15Compliance Officers66th
16Title Examiners, Abstractors, and Searchers86th
17Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captionersnot scored
18Eligibility Interviewers, Government Programs84th
19Tax Examiners and Collectors, and Revenue Agents94th
20Detectives and Criminal Investigators57th

Computed 2026-08-15 from O*NET 30.3 “Related Occupations” × AIOE percentiles (average-rank method; full method in the source ledger). Across all 782 scoreable occupations, an occupation's exposure percentile and its related occupations' mean exposure percentile correlate at r = 0.907; 122 of 192 top-quartile-exposed occupations (63.5%) have zero related occupations below median exposure. “Skills-adjacent and AI-safe” is a near-empty set for exactly the people searching for it.

ROUTES

The routes that actually change the number

In the data, pivots that genuinely reduce exposure are mostly job-zone jumps into hands-on work — retraining, not adjacency. That has real costs and real prices, so here they are, from the institutions' own pages. Routes below are the nearest-by-wage destinations from our audited library (exposure ≤ 60th percentile).

The honest wage math: nothing in a retraining library replaces a $159,670 median without years of runway. Every destination below is a pay cut — shown, not hidden. For this occupation the evidenced alternatives are (a) adapting in place (see the AI-credential registry for what that costs) and (b) genuine exposure-reduction at a real income cost.

Registered Nurses

$97,550 median wage 2025 Faster than average (5% to 6%) · BLS 2024–34 −$62,120 vs this occupation's median

AIOE exposure: 57th percentile of 774 scored occupations · employment (2024): 3,391,000 · wage/outlook: BLS via O*NET OnLine, fetched 2026-08-15

What training costs (published prices, dated):

  • 2-year ADN at community colleges (plus prerequisites and NCLEX licensure). No program price was re-verified today.

Diagnostic Medical Sonographers

$96,590 median wage 2025 Much faster than average (7%+) · BLS 2024–34 −$63,080 vs this occupation's median

AIOE exposure: 45th percentile of 774 scored occupations · employment (2024): 90,000 · wage/outlook: BLS via O*NET OnLine, fetched 2026-08-15

What training costs (published prices, dated):

  • 1–2 year certificate/associate at community colleges (often requires a prior clinical credential). No program price was re-verified today.

Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses

$64,400 median wage 2025 Average (3% to 4%) · BLS 2024–34 −$95,270 vs this occupation's median

AIOE exposure: 38th percentile of 774 scored occupations · employment (2024): 651,400 · wage/outlook: BLS via O*NET OnLine, fetched 2026-08-15

What training costs (published prices, dated):

  • Lincoln Land Community College (IL) LPN certificate — ≈$8,899 total in-district tuition and fees at the 2025–26 rate ($287/credit; 2026–27: $293/credit); books, supplies and licensing ≈$1,100 more, itemized on the page (llcc.edu, verified 2026-08-15)

Funding: training toward routes like these can be WIOA-fundable for eligible adults and dislocated workers — eligibility is determined at your local American Job Center (find yours); state Eligible Training Provider Lists name the approved programs. Registered apprenticeships are searchable at apprenticeship.gov.

The full report for Lawyers — $29, one-time

This free audit shows the shape. The paid report builds your priced menu: every evidenced route out of Lawyers with published program costs near you, earnings records where they exist (College Scorecard field-of-study / Census PSEO), apprenticeship and WIOA funding pointers, the credential ladder, and the same honest exposure read — every figure sourced and dated. No score theater, no “safe jobs” list the data cannot support.

The $29 report Read the free specimen first

No email capture before purchase. No countdown timer. It's a report, not a funnel.

Sources for this page