Category: Freelance Economy

JPMorgan Beating Startups to the AI Revolution. Artificial Intelligence to Eat White Collar Jobs – Is Going Solo in the Freelance Economy the Answer?

It is not just startups shaking up the AI world.  JPMorgan discusses its artificial intelligence program. Going Solo in the Freelance Economy starts looking better.

When I left Big Firm, it was for personal reasons.  I did not leave shaking my fist at a horrible culture and history of injustice.  I did not experience that.  I started thinking about a professional life staring at a different set of walls.  I began to question my place in the Big Firm ecosystem and whether I could succeed without the safety net.  Lucky me, I could.

For many attorneys, the choice will not be theirs to make.  Technology is coming for their jobs.

Junior attorneys in bigger firms spend most of their time in some sort of document review and document processing roles.  This is necessary grunt work, and it is how junior attorneys learn, when they pay attention.

Billable rates have continued to increase, and clients push back when they can.  However, discovery in litigation and due diligence in transactional work must get done.  What happens when software can take the place of expensive junior associates?

It is about to happen.

There have been a number of articles lately about first generation artificial intelligence tools for this type of work and their early adopter law firms.

Last week, Bloomberg reported on JPMorgan’s COIN, or Contract Intelligence, program.  It reviews commercial loan agreements, something that consumed 360,000 hours of work by lawyers and loan officers each year.  That task now takes seconds, has fewer errors, does not ask for vacations or have the other baggage associated with human employees.

In addition, JPMorgan’s machine learning and big data system helps automate software coding.

In legal circles, litigation document review was seen as the low-hanging fruit for AI software.  However, any white collar position that provides a service that is based on rote activities can and will be replaced by software.  It may not be tomorrow, but it is sooner than you think.  JPMorgan is already planning to license its service to its bigger clients who are staffed to the rafters with white collar “thought employees” who are about to be replaced by code.

Many people believe their job cannot be at risk to computers because computers do not have the judgement capabilities of humans.  But:

As for COIN, the program has helped JPMorgan cut down on loan-servicing mistakes, most of which stemmed from human error in interpreting 12,000 new wholesale contracts per year, according to its designers.

The software is doing other tasks that lots of humans now perform:

For simpler tasks, the bank has created bots to perform functions like granting access to software systems and responding to IT requests, such as resetting an employee’s password, Zames said. Bots are expected to handle 1.7 million access requests this year, doing the work of 140 people.

I am not writing this as a doom-and-gloom article about lost employment.  I think this is ultimately a good thing.  No one knows about the opportunities that will arise from this shift.

It does mean that people should recognize the shift and their place in it.  Stability, comfort and complacency in large organizations has been an antiquated notion for a while.  Maybe Going Solo and finding your place in the Freelance Economy is a path forward.

Artificial intelligence drives the Freelance Economy, eats white collar jobs.
Artificial intelligence drives the Freelance Economy, eats white collar jobs.  Some large enterprise companies are beating startups to the AI revolution.

“Solopreneur” Article Supports My Ideas About Freelance Economy

Old article shows that the Freelance Economy is not a flash in the pan; agrees with me and is therefore correct (in parts).

Several weeks ago, I saw Shane Snow give a short talk at a recent 1 Million Cups – Dallas event, where he provided some insight into how he built Contently.  I looked for some more of his writing and came across this WaPo article from 2012 about “Solopreneurs,” or what I have called the “Freelance Economy.”

Snow provided one anecdote about a former (not voluntarily) news editor who succeeded as a freelancer.  He provided some stats, which were helpful.  If you are a freelancer, you’re not alone even if the government is not tracking you.  However, this seems more like a blessing than a curse unless you believe a career unexamined by the government is not worth working.

There were a few points in the article that supports some of my views of the Freelance Economy.  For example, this is not a temporary phenomena.

“The increase in freelancers isn’t a temporary phase. It’s a systemic change,” says Sara Horowitz, founder of Freelancers Union, an insurance company and advocacy group. “The recession likely sped up a shift that was happening already.”

In addition, Freelance Economy professionals value their independence.

This happens to line up with what much of the labor pool wants, too: flexibility. BLS reports that 90 percent of freelancers prefer independence to being locked in a cubicle.

There will be more in a separate post about where I disagree with the article.

 

Going Solo – BLS Reports More Americans Quitting Their Jobs For The Freelance Economy

More Americans going solo in the Freelance Economy as culture shifts from “get comfy job” to “I’ll make my own job.”

Noting recent Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, Bplans reports that the number of Americans quitting their jobs is at a 5-year high.  This is related to a reported rise in entrepreneurial activity.

I am not surprised, as the Freelance Economy offers great opportunity and flexibility to the ambitious and talented.

While the economy was hurting, people were staying in their jobs as fear kept them in place.  People now feel more confident about landing well if they quit, whether it is for another job or to create their own job.

“We’re currently in the midst of a major cultural shift—48 percent of Americans want to be entrepreneurs today. While past generations believed that the best and safest path was through a long career at a big, stable company, those in the workforce now don’t see it that way at all. The financial crisis called into question the entire notion of job security, as “stable jobs” were lost and “stable companies” turned out to be anything but.

Nowadays, many people are of the mindset that entrepreneurship is actually the more secure path. Instead of putting yourself at the mercy of layoffs and watching the heads of the company you work for make bad decisions, entrepreneurship means taking your fate into your own hands.”

According to Bplans, this is a trend that spans generations.

“A whopping 63 percent of 20-somethings want to start their own businesses, according to a recent survey…

According to the Kauffman Foundation, the 55+ age group is the fastest growing demographic of entrepreneurs. “Encore careers” are becoming more and more common, as retirees want to stay active and supplement their retirement income at the same time.”

“Encore careers.”  I like it.

Spanning the divide of the millenials and the AARP set are the  baby boomers under retirement age, and the 25% of them who want to go entreprenurial.

Is it just economic conditions that are pushing folks into the Freelance Economy?  Nope.

Technology is making entrepreneurship accessible, from reducing cost to promoting ease of use.

“It costs almost nothing to build a basic web page, and you can set up a whole business infrastructure for under $100 a month. Virtual help desks, for example, allow small companies to offer world-class customer service without adding a whole customer service team to the payroll.”

In this regard, Bplans believes that “we are entering into a new golden age of entrepreneurship in America.”

From this solo practitioner, it is hard to argue.

Going Solo Unexpected Rules – Attorney Requirements for Maintaining a “Bona Fide” Office

Going solo in the Freelance Economy requires that you follow requirements for where, not just how, you do business.

Going Solo Risk – Delaware attorney suspended for, among other things, not maintaining a “bona fide” office

The ABA Journal recently reported on a disciplinary case where the attorney received a two-year suspension for not maintaining an exclusive office space, among other things.  Delaware requires attorneys to maintain a “bona fide” office for the practice of law in Delaware.  The respondent did not, and being available by phone is simply not enough to comply with the rule.

 

“Barakat’s lease does not include any designated office space that is exclusively his. Rather, the employees of the landlord collect Barakat’s mail and greet any visitors Barakat may have. The building security guards direct visitors to the fourth floor, where a receptionist is stationed during normal business hours. Under this arrangement, Barakat is entitled, for additional fees, to rent a conference  room or office space, and utilize secretarial, reproduction, facsimile, word processing, and shipping services. The landlord’s billing records (the “Occupant Ledger”), and the testimony of two employees who work on the fourth floor, evidence that Barakat’s presence at 901 North Market Street is “sporadic and unscheduled.””

For attorneys going solo, or anyone entering the Freelance Economy and working from their home, this case should be an eye opener.  Licensing requirements for office space are just as important as practical realities in choosing where to set up shop.

In reading the case, we don’t want to get too hung up on the office requirement since the attorney at issue was deficient in this administration in other matters, such as safeguarding client funds (a very big ethical issue, as you non-attorneys may guess) and lying about these issues in response to prior inquiries.

However, for the purpose of setting up your business, make sure where you practice complies with licensing requirements and ethical obligations just as much as how you practice.

Domain Misdirected – Now Fixed

I learned yesterday that the domain for this blog was misdirected and attempts to reach it ended up on some random landing page with popup ads.

I contacted HostGator, which hosts this blog as well as the Underdisclosed.com blog and my law firm site, DougBermanLaw.com.  The domain was directed to the wrong HostGator server.  There is no indication of why, how or when this happened since the site was working fine through last week.

In addition, the DougBermanLaw.com site was down due to a glitch on the HostGator side involving the site builder tools.

Anyway, its fixed now.  HostGator customer service did a great job in getting them back up and running.

In the Freelance Economy, you never know what kind of problems you’ll face day-to-day, including IT issues.  Get a good service provider.