White collar jobpocalypse? Is AI really going to cut trainee lawyer numbers or might it end up boosting them?

The Legal Cheek Podcast is proudly independent. Thanks to our sponsor Simpson Thacher, home of the private equity training contract, for making that possible: https://ukearlycareers.stblaw.com/Currently, the legal press and beyond is full of doom-mongering of a staggering scale — the advent of AI means one thing for sure: your shiny legal career is no longer a dead cert.And as law firms and other professional services companies scramble to respond to an alleged jobpocalypse, the graduate class are the ones appearing to suffer the most, with most responding by cutting graduate scheme classes and entry-level positions. Unsurprisingly, law firms across the globe are reacting in kind — recently, Aussie firm MinterEllison axed its 2025-26 graduate intake by a third, from 100 places to just 72.However, Legal Cheek‘s Julia Szaniszlo and Alex Aldridge are here to tell you that this might not be the whole story. Some of the world’s largest law firms are actually boosting their numbers. Latham & Watkins recently expanded their summer associate programme across the pond in the US, from 122 to around 170 in 2027. The picture in the UK doesn’t seem too different, with exclusive research at Legal Cheek revealing that, despite talks of a grad job apocalypse, City TC numbers have in fact remained stable for the past half a decade. So what’s with all this mixed messaging?