Don't Make a Bug a Feature: The Butter Knife Solution and Why Lawyers Need to Call the AI Plumber

Where I explore the psychology of normalized dysfunction in legal practice and why AI is the fix we need

Okay, so you probably read the title to this one and you’re either (a) intrigued, or (b) not reading this sentence. 😂

The butter knife part caught your attention, didn’t it? Or maybe it was the idea that the legal profession, our noble, centuries-old institution, might be living with the professional equivalent of a broken bathtub drain. Either way, if you’ve ever caught yourself explaining to a new hire that “we do it this way because that’s how we’ve always done it,” this one’s for you.

This is a story about what happens when smart people get so good at working around problems that they forget they’re problems at all. It’s about why the most successful lawyers are often the most resistant to AI. And yes, it’s about my actual bathtub and the butter knife that’s been sitting next to it for years.

If this sounds interesting to you, please read on…​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Whenever I take a bath at my house, I perform the same ritual: I reach for a butter knife, not for toast, but to pry open a broken bathtub drain. The plunger failed years ago, trapped in the down position by a stripped dial. We could call a plumber. We should call a plumber. Instead, we've normalized this daily workaround, this small friction that compounds into minutes, then hours, then days of unnecessary effort over time.

Sound familiar? It should. Because if you're a lawyer reading this, you're probably surrounded by your own butter knives: those jury-rigged solutions that keep your practice functional but far from optimal. The difference is, your butter knives look like Word macros from 2003, byzantine filing systems, and that one paralegal who "just knows" how to make the scanner work.

The Normalization of Dysfunction

Clayton Christensen didn't write about bathtubs, but he might as well have. In "The Innovator's Dilemma," he describes how successful organizations become prisoners of their own processes. They optimize for what works today, even when "what works" is a euphemism for "what we've learned to tolerate."

The legal profession has perfected this art. We've turned workarounds into workflows, bugs into features. Take document review. What started as lawyers reading papers has evolved into... lawyers reading PDFs. Revolutionary. We've digitized the paper but kept the pain. It's like replacing your butter knife with a silver butter knife and calling it innovation.

The psychology here is textbook status quo bias meets sunk cost fallacy. Daniel Kahneman would have a field day. We've invested so much in learning these broken systems that fixing them feels like admitting defeat. Better to master the butter knife than admit we need a plumber.

Enter the AI Plumber

But here's where the metaphor gets interesting. Artificial intelligence isn't just another butter knife, it's the plumber showing up uninvited at your door. And like any homeowner caught in their bathrobe at 7 AM, the legal profession's first instinct is to pretend nobody's home.

The resistance makes sense through the lens of what psychologist Carol Dweck calls "fixed mindset." Many lawyers have built their identity around mastering complexity— the more arcane the process, the more valuable the expertise. AI threatens this because it doesn't just automate tasks; it democratizes capability. Suddenly, that junior associate with ChatGPT can draft a motion that would've taken a third-year hours to produce.

This isn't about robots replacing lawyers, that's the wrong fear. It's about the profession's learned helplessness being exposed. We've spent so long working around our broken drains that we've forgotten drains are supposed to, you know, drain.

The Expertise Trap

Here's the cruel irony: the lawyers most resistant to AI are often the most successful. They've mastered the butter knife. They can drain that tub faster than anyone. In their world, inefficiency has become a moat.

Nassim Taleb calls this “domain dependence,” being smart in one area while blind in another. The partner who can spot a contractual loophole from across the room can't see that their entire document management system is a Rube Goldberg machine held together by Post-it notes and prayer.

This blindness isn't for lack of IQ; it's specialization. When you bill by the hour, inefficiency isn't a bug: it's a business model. Why fix the drain when you can bill for butter knife time?

The Adjacent Possible

Steven Johnson, in "Where Good Ideas Come From," introduces the concept of the "adjacent possible,” the realm of possibilities that opens up with each innovation. AI isn't just fixing our current problems; it's revealing problems we didn't know we had.

Consider legal research. Pre-AI, we accepted that finding relevant cases meant hours in Westlaw's labyrinthine interface. We got good at Boolean searches the way our ancestors got good at hunting with spears. It worked, but nobody asked, "What if we didn't have to hunt at all?"

AI shifts the adjacent possible. Suddenly, we can ask: What if research happened in real-time during drafting? What if contracts could self-audit? What if client communications could be simultaneously personal and scalable? These aren't incremental improvements, they're category shifts.

The Integration Imperative

But here's where many tech-forward lawyers get it wrong. They treat AI like a new butter knife, fancier, sure, but still a workaround. They bolt ChatGPT onto their existing workflows like spoilers on a minivan.

Real transformation requires what systems theorist Russell Ackoff called "synthesis, not analysis." You can't optimize a broken system; you have to reimagine it. This means questioning everything: Why do we draft documents this way? Why do we structure matters like this? Why do we communicate with clients in legalese they pay us to translate?

The lawyers who will thrive aren't the ones who use AI best, they're the ones who let AI reveal how arbitrary their current practices are. They're calling the plumber, not shopping for prettier butter knives.

The Emotional Labor of Change

Let's acknowledge the elephant in the room: change is exhausting. There's a reason we keep our butter knives. Calling the plumber means admitting the problem, scheduling the visit, being home for the repair, possibly discovering bigger issues. The butter knife is certain, the devil we know. The plumber is uncertainty and chaos.

Psychologist William Bridges distinguishes between change (external) and transition (internal). The legal profession is experiencing both. The change is AI's capability. The transition is letting go of our identity as masters of complexity.

This isn't just about learning new tools. It's about grieving old competencies. The senior partner who spent decades perfecting their craft now watches an AI do it in seconds. That's not just disruption; it's existential vertigo.

The Path Forward

So what's a forward-thinking lawyer to do? First, recognize your butter knives. Audit your workflows with fresh eyes. Where have you normalized dysfunction? What would someone from outside the profession find absurd about your daily routine?

Second, embrace "creative destruction." Yes, AI will destroy some traditional legal work. But it will create new categories we can't yet imagine. The lawyers who litigated railroad routes didn't anticipate aviation law. Today's prompt engineers are tomorrow's AI ethicists.

Third, remember that expertise isn't about knowing answers; it's about asking better questions. AI can draft a contract. Only you can ask whether it serves your client's unstated needs. AI can find precedents. Only you can sense which argument will resonate with this particular judge on this particular day.

Closing Thoughts

My bathtub drain remains broken as I write this. The butter knife sits in its place of honor, a monument to functional dysfunction. But I've made the call. The plumber comes Tuesday.

The legal profession stands at a similar threshold. We can keep our butter knives, our workarounds, our elaborate systems for managing broken processes. Or we can open the door to transformation: messy, uncertain, but ultimately liberating.

The choice isn't between tradition and technology. It's between stagnation and evolution. The drain will never fix itself. The question is: How much longer will we pretend the butter knife is good enough?

The plumber is here. Time to answer the door.