Is law’s future tied to artificial intelligence?

Despite concerns and possible regulation, artificial intelligence remains a hot-button topic for the legal sector.  

Last week, we at Douglas Scott discussed whether senior lawyers were using generative AI to its full potential. And, just in the last week, a report from LexisNexis has been released that shows the use of AI by lawyers has exponentially increased even on last year.  

The attention-grabbing headline from the report is that 82% of lawyers are now using artificial intelligence or are planning to do so in the next year, four times the number when similar surveys were conducted last year. 41% are using the technology currently (up from 11% from July 2023), with the same number planning to use AI in the next year (up from 28%), while those with no plans to use AI dropped to 15%. (It was 65% last year.) These numbers clearly show a sudden and sharp increase in the numbers using AI and a vast reduction in the numbers who think it will have no place in the legal sector.

Much like in the rest of the economy, understanding and using AI is becoming a vital transferable skill and is being sought after by employers. Many respondents to the survey said they were starting to actively encourage their employees to use the technology to streamline administrative tasks such as research, document reviews and contract analysis. As technology continues to develop, many firms are keeping abreast of potential developments in AI. Despite this sudden excitement, however, many are still concerned about possible issues with the technology, and some are uncertain about how to use it, especially as a solution to things that the legal sector hasn’t identified as problems yet.  

One interesting point that emerged from the report was that a significant proportion of respondents believed that artificial intelligence could bring about an end to the billable hour model as we know it. 39%, well over a third of respondents, believed that using AI would mean that the billable hour model would need to be adjusted, with 17% believing that it would signal the end of that model altogether.  Even though 40% believed it wouldn’t alter the model, 42% were unsure of AI’s impact. Of those respondents who felt that AI would change the billable hours model, many seemed to think that its changes would be for the better, as it would allow changes to reflect better the value that lawyers add to a firm and what they practically deliver, rather than just the number of hours worked. Many were concerned, too, about inaccurate information from public AI tools, with 76% of respondents expressing reservations about this issue. However, as specialist AI tools are developed for law firms, these concerns about inaccurate and fabricated information may drop.  

While there are many concerns about artificial intelligence’s use in law, this report shows that many firms are looking to use or are already using AI. Many firms are now putting training and policies around AI to mitigate these problems, enabling lawyers to use their time more productively. Developing AI further, however, remains the target for many firms, and those that do will find themselves potentially gaining a competitive advantage over those that do not.