As large language models enter China’s legal profession, which lawyers will lose out?
‘The industry has become unwelcoming to inexperienced newcomers, prompting many to switch careers’: Beijing-based legal officer
However, lawyers cannot afford to ignore the technology; the real question is not whether to use it, but how to harness its speed without sacrificing trust.
Enter Chinalawinfo PKULaw, Peking University’s flagship legal database, which has rolled out a standard Model Context Protocol (MCP) interface – developed by Anthropic in 2024 – that plugs into any large language model like a flash drive, instantly equipping it with authoritative legal retrieval.
On its WeChat account, Chinalawinfo PKULaw said the new service – with backing from a vast repository of regulations, court rulings, academic analyses and case records – allowed users to search, verify currency, draft contracts and collate similar cases, all while delivering outputs that were not only accurate but also traceable to their source.
In short, the service transforms generative AI from a black box of potential hallucinations into a transparent, verifiable research partner, according to the developers.
But will it replace human lawyers?
Zhang Xian, deputy general manager of Chinalawinfo PKULaw, said the service was positioned squarely as an assistant, not a replacement.