Current Use, Future Possibilities, and the Path to Responsible Adoption
At this moment of unprecedented growth in generative AI technologies, new large scale AI models are released every month. They are increasingly adept at generating text and images, analyzing patterns, and understanding speech. And they’re poised to reshape the nature of practicing law.
AI is already beginning to transform legal work through 3 major shifts:
1. Cost Cutting
As AI tools grow more sophisticated, legal professionals are relying on them to expand their expertise and capacity. This means a leaner team can accomplish more work, without hiring additional employees or paying for contracted services.
2. Time Savings
What used to take hours of daily work can now be done within minutes. For instance, while the average human can read around 10-15,000 words an hour, AI can process around 200,000 words a minute. It can then rapidly generate summaries or extract key information, all in a tiny fraction of the time a human requires for the same task.
3. Improved Accuracy
Even the sharpest minds struggle to process the reams of information associated with every legal matter. It’s beyond our capacity to catch every detail and note each inconsistency. For early adopters, AI is already eliminating human error, preventing costly mistakes, and discovering pivotal details in legal documents.
Clients seeking fast results and affordability will increasingly demand lawyers who leverage AI. And when it comes to risk mitigation, AI-backed accuracy could become a requirement for the industry.
With these economic drivers, AI is already beginning the shift from novel tool to practice prerequisite.
Just as the internet is now mandatory for every aspect of practicing law, AI tools are positioned to rapidly outgrow their use as an occasional add-on tool, into a necessary condition for the practice of law.
A recent report from the European Parliamentary Research Service concluded that AI would likely create “a deepening divide between technological leaders and laggards in every sector.” The report continued:
“‘Early adopters’, that is, companies that fully absorb AI tools over the next five to seven years, will most probably benefit disproportionately. At the other end of the spectrum would be the slow adopters or non-adopters, which are likely to experience some economic decline. The market share is likely to shift from the laggards to the front-runners, which would be able to gradually attract more and more of the profit pool of their industry. This would lead to a ‘winner takes all’ phenomenon, similar to what is currently observed on tech markets. Advances in AI and technology could enable front runners to make a decisive break from the pack and become ‘superstars’ enjoying the highest productivity levels.”
The winners and losers of the changing legal market will likely be decided in
large part by how AI technology is adopted and deployed across the sector.
Capturing the Evolution of an Industry
This report examines an industry on the brink of a dramatic, once in-a-generation change. We analyze how legal professionals currently perceive and use AI tools, and explore how lawyers can leverage the benefits and mitigate the risks of these new technologies.
Based on information gathered in a survey we administered to legal professionals, this white paper explores
- How lawyers are already using large language models (LLMs)
- How they plan to deploy them in the future
- Their main concerns and hopes for the technology.
We then look at some of the most promising uses of AI to improve efficiency,
drive revenue, and enhance client satisfaction for law firms and legal groups.
Measuring AI Literacy in Law
“AI is transforming what it means to provide legal services in six primary areas — litigation review; expertise automation; legal research; contract analytics; contract and litigation document generation; and predictive analytics. [...] Lawyers of the future will not need to be able to “code,” but they will need an intimate and continuing understanding of how to identify and use AI solutions to meet their clients’ needs.” —Anthony E. Davis for the American Bar Association
The impacts of AI may be of a magnitude comparable to major technological shifts like the Industrial Revolution. It has the potential to disrupt existing jobs, companies, and entire sectors, while enabling new types of automation, insights, and economic activity.
The bundle of technologies that are grouped under “artificial intelligence” include many tools that lawyers already use. For instance, a simple Google search uses AI technology to provide more relevant results. But new advances in large language models like Google’s Bard or Claude from Anthropic open up unique opportunities for legal professionals, helping them analyze information and rapidly prepare legal documents.
With changes already at hand, how well do legal professionals currently understand this new technology?
We asked lawyers and legal professionals how familiar they are with recent developments in language model technology. Most of them (76%) answered that they were at least moderately familiar.
However, only 39% report they are ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ familiar. This suggests an urgent need for greater AI literacy across the industry.
Even lawyers who choose not to use AI language models will eventually need to stay abreast of their development in order to demonstrate competence in emerging technologies. Most states now income technological competence as part of their legal ethics rules. As generative AI is increasingly part of everyday life, lawyers will need to understand it in order to guide their clients and stay up-to-date with developing regulations and policies.
Tracking the Adoption Curve
The introduction of AI language models in the legal field is following a typical technology adoption curve. Innovators and early adopters are leading the way by rapidly employing AI to transform their practices, eager to gain a competitive advantage.
The early majority of more cautious players are carefully studying initial forays into AI by innovators. They are running limited pilot projects to determine how and where AI may enhance their established ways of operating.
For now, AI remains an additional tool used sparingly where suitable rather than an integrated or unquestioned part of their workflow. However, as initial experiments prove successful and the technology continues advancing rapidly with more standardization, AI is likely to see wider adoption across the early majority.
As AI tools improve and more firms join the ranks of users, the later majority will face greater pressure to adopt the technology. For these firms, AI will have matured into an ubiquitous and indispensable foundation for practice. Non-adopters risk significant disadvantages in efficiency, quality, and cost.
