Adelaide tax lawyer says AI helps firm hire juniors

Adelaide tax lawyer Adrian Cartland has expanded Cartland Law's team from five to 23 staff, including six junior or student lawyers.

The growth came as the firm took on a complex tax matter that required detailed profit and loss statements to be built from large volumes of source documents, including bank statements, invoices and receipts.

Cartland said the work created an opportunity to train junior lawyers on tasks many firms would be reluctant to accept because of the time involved and the risk of errors. He argued that artificial intelligence, if used carefully and broken into narrower tasks, can increase the amount of work a small practice can handle rather than reduce the need for junior staff.

Over the past year, that approach has helped turn Cartland Law into one of the country's larger single-principal practices, according to Cartland. The expansion also runs against broader concerns that automation could cut white-collar jobs, with junior lawyers often cited among the most exposed.

Complex work

At the centre of the firm's recent hiring was a tax case that required extensive financial reconstruction from primary records. Cartland said the workload would have deterred some firms, while others using automation less effectively might have faced delays correcting inaccurate outputs.

"By using AI more expediently, breaking the job load into more discrete and manageable tasks, my team was able to produce a complex and accurate profit and loss statement for the client in only a few days, a task which manually would typically have taken many weeks," said Adrian Cartland, chair of the Society For Trust and Estate Practitioners (SA) and the Tax Institute State Taxes Committee (SA).

Cartland said the case showed how AI can change the organisation of legal labour rather than simply replace it. In his account, software handled part of the repetitive document processing, while junior lawyers were trained to manage and verify the output within a more structured workflow.

That view diverges from forecasts suggesting a large share of Australian white-collar employment could be disrupted if AI adoption spreads rapidly. Cartland rejected those warnings and said the technology was being mischaracterised by critics who did not know how to use it in a professional setting.

"I have been a consistent and dedicated voice in opposition to industry doom merchants and those who are giving it a bad name because they don't know how to apply it professionally and ethically," said Cartland.

Training debate

Cartland also criticised restrictions on AI use in legal education, saying students risk entering the workforce without enough practical experience of tools now appearing in professional practice.

"This includes universities where law students are exposed to stifling AI usage restrictions that is ill-preparing them for formal employment when they graduate," said Cartland.

The issue has become more prominent as firms, universities and regulators weigh how far AI can be used in legal drafting, research and administrative work. Concerns about reliability, confidentiality and accountability have led many organisations to impose limits, even as lawyers experiment with systems that can summarise documents, draft routine text and sort data quickly.

Cartland has been one of the more outspoken advocates for AI in Australian legal practice. He was recognised as Young Lawyer of the Year in 2017 and has previously launched what he described as Australia's first law firm without lawyers, an AI-led retail legal service focused on estate planning and business structuring.

Outside client work, he also writes satire for The Daily Cartland, a legal-themed publication that uses humour to target scepticism about technology in the profession and attitudes in the academic sector.

Hiring claims

Cartland said his firm's recent expansion should be seen as evidence that AI can support graduate hiring if firms redesign workflows around supervision and specialised task management. He said the same tools are available across the profession, but outcomes depend on how well they are implemented.

"I not only believe that AI is not a threat to legal sector entrants, as is so commonly touted, but I am proving unequivocally that AI is an opportunity for law firms to employ graduates and I encourage my peers to understand how they can go about that," said Cartland.

He added that the firm's focus on tax, trusts and technology had helped it improve output and manage work more efficiently.

"I have established an efficient firm that, with its focus on tax, trusts and technology, can produce higher quality work, more effectively and efficiently. We use the same AI as other firms but we are better than most at applying and implementing the technology," said Cartland.