Why TV Misleads Us About What Lawyers Really Do (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Colonel Jessup. Did you order the code red? You don't have to answer that question. I'll answer the question. You want answers? I think I'm entitled to them. You want answers? I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. Six out of ten Americans get their entire understanding of lawyers from the media. And here's the kicker. Most of what you think you know? Completely wrong. We conducted a survey to find out what people think lawyers do versus what lawyers actually do. And the results? Absolutely wild. Where do you get your knowledge about what lawyers do? TV shows? Movies? Law and order marathons? In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories. Let's break this down. According to our survey, most people are getting their legal knowledge from these five sources. 24% from TV shows and movies. 14% from podcasts, books, and documentaries. 13% from news coverage. And 9% from social media. That means only 40% are getting their information from actual real life experiences with lawyers. Now listen. Over a third of people, 34%, think preparing for court is a lawyer's most time-consuming task. You know, all that dramatic OBJECTION YOUR HONOR stuff you see on TV. But people who actually know lawyers, they tell a different story. 34% of them correctly identify that researching and writing legal documents is what takes up most of a lawyer's time. And guess what? That matches almost perfectly with what lawyers themselves say. The truth is buried in paperwork, folks. Not courtroom theatrics. Would you have known what the most time-consuming task is? Drop a comment and let me know. Okay, this one's fascinating. Only 13% of people believe AI can handle more than half of a lawyer's job. Most people think AI can barely handle a quarter of legal work. But inside actual law firms, half of all legal professionals are already using AI for tasks like research. 20% believe AI could handle the majority of their admin duties right now. In fact, a Goldman Sachs study projects that 44% of legal work can be automated. But if you get your law knowledge from TV and movies, 60% of you think AI can't even handle a quarter of legal tasks. That is a massive disconnect. And here's why it matters. When clients are skeptical of AI, law firms are less likely to invest in tools that can make their work faster and more accurate. You wouldn't want a pilot flying with an outdated navigation system, right? So why would you want your legal team using outdated tools when your freedom, finances, and even family are at stake? All right, here's my favorite finding from this entire survey. Nearly half of all respondents, 47%, feel confident that they understand what lawyers do day to day. The more confident people were, the more they got wrong. Let me give you an example. When we asked about work hours, only 43% of very confident people guessed that lawyers work 50 plus hours per week. Meanwhile, 57% of people who said they weren't confident got it right. Lawyers actually average 53 hours per week. The same pattern showed up again and again. The people who were sure they knew what lawyers do were consistently the most wrong. So what's the takeaway here? Pop culture has given us this incredibly distorted view of what lawyers actually do. We think it's all courtroom drama and passionate closing statements. Exactly, because isn't the first card in the rule of perm maintenance that you're forbidden to wet your hair for at least 24 hours after getting a perm at the risk of deactivating the ammonium thigh glycolate? But the reality is mountains of paperwork, long hours, research, and administrative tasks that most people never get to see. And this disconnect has real consequences. It affects who goes into law, how clients interact with their lawyers, and whether firms adopt technology that could genuinely help. The work that's invisible to most of us, that's where the real legal work happens. And that's where tools like AI and legal tech are making the biggest difference. Helping lawyers cut through the admin overload so they can focus on the strategic work that actually matters. So next time you're watching a legal drama, just remember real lawyers spend a lot less time objecting in court and a lot more time drowning in documents. If you found this interesting, hit that like button and subscribe for more. Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next one. No, I was the only child. You can't handle the truth.