Present evidence to defend clients or prosecute defendants in criminal or civil litigation.

“Present evidence to defend clients or prosecute defendants in criminal or civil litigation.” is a core task performed by Lawyers. Among the occupation's 22 rated tasks, workers place it 15th by importance (#8 most important). About 63% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Present information in legal proceedings. in Communicating with People Outside the Organization

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E2. Exposure with tools — software built on top of a language model (not the model alone) could cut the time by at least half.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.50. Automation potential label: T1.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Interpret laws, rulings and regulations for individuals and businesses. · importance 4.5
• Analyze the probable outcomes of cases, using knowledge of legal precedents. · importance 4.4
• Gather evidence to formulate defense or to initiate legal actions by such means as interviewing clients and witnesses to ascertain the facts of a case. · importance 4.4
• Present and summarize cases to judges and juries. · importance 4.4
• Represent clients in court or before government agencies. · importance 4.3
• Select jurors, argue motions, meet with judges, and question witnesses during the course of a trial. · importance 4.3
• Evaluate findings and develop strategies and arguments in preparation for presentation of cases. · importance 4.3
• Advise clients concerning business transactions, claim liability, advisability of prosecuting or defending lawsuits, or legal rights and obligations. · importance 4.3
• Examine legal data to determine advisability of defending or prosecuting lawsuit. · importance 4.2
• Prepare, draft, and review legal documents, such as wills, deeds, patent applications, mortgages, leases, and contracts. · importance 4.2
• Study Constitution, statutes, decisions, regulations, and ordinances of quasi-judicial bodies to determine ramifications for cases. · importance 4.0
• Negotiate settlements of civil disputes. · importance 4.0
• Supervise legal assistants. · importance 4.0
• Probate wills and represent and advise executors and administrators of estates. · importance 3.9

See all tasks on the Lawyers page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-3782,
  title  = {Present evidence to defend clients or prosecute defendants in criminal or civil litigation.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-3782}
}