For more than half a century, the use of artificial intelligence in legal domains has been a topic of interest for scholars and organizations. In this talk, I look at some major trends in these undertakings, asking: How did they conceive of the role of technology in the area of legal work? From the standpoint of how these projects sought to implement AI, how did they imagine the function of the law in society? Then, turning to our current situation and looking forward, I discuss some potential trade-offs which lie before us. If previous attempts to make legal matters computable ran up against the limits of propositional logic, the bluntness of formalization et cetera – what can we expect from deep learning? More specifically, is there a conflict between prediction as a goal in AI and explainability as a requirement in the practice of law? Or – might the efficiency of predictive statistics encourage a new self-image of the legal domain: from one concerned with precision, transparency, and accountability to one which traffics in data-driven forecasting, valorized by the old dream of prevention?