AI in Legal Services: A Co-Pilot, Not a Replacement
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping the legal landscape. From all-encompassing platforms like Harvey and Legora to more targeted tools such as Spellbook and Luminance, AI’s presence in legal services is becoming increasingly ubiquitous.
Where does AI add Value Today?
AI is already reshaping how legal services are delivered, bringing speed, consistency, and efficiency to tasks that traditionally consume significant time and resources. By automating routine processes, it is freeing up lawyers across law firms and in-house teams to focus on higher-value work.
Two areas where AI is making a clear impact:
Document Review: AI can rapidly process vast volumes of documents, identifying relevance and extracting key information far faster than human reviewers.
Contract Lifecycle Management: AI is able to help to standardise contracts, flag inconsistencies, suggest clauses based on historical data or jurisdictional norms, and track key dates and obligations.
Beyond legal-specific tasks, AI can also support day-to-day operations, refining emails, polishing presentations, and assisting with time recording, making it a versatile and valuable tool for many roles and functions within the legal ecosystem.
The Human Touch
As AI becomes more embedded in legal workflows, the discussion of a future where machines handle everything from research to resolution is becoming more prevalent. However, the reality is much more nuanced. AI, whilst incredibly powerful, lacks the contextual understanding, ethical reasoning, and professional accountability that the delivery of legal services requires. There are key reasons why human input will always be required:
Prompt Quality Matters: AI is only as effective as the instructions it receives. A well-crafted prompt (the instruction or question that you give to the AI, which tells it what you want it to do or generate) can yield precise, relevant, and actionable results, while a vague or poorly structured one can lead to confusion, inaccuracies, or even misleading outputs. AI doesn’t inherently understand context, it relies on the information you provide. Context might include jurisdiction, client preferences, or industry norms. Without this context, the output may be technically correct but practically irrelevant.
Bias and Oversight: Without human oversight, AI can perpetuate historical, cultural, or systemic biases. This presents a real risk in legal services, where fairness, impartiality, and ethical standards are paramount. Human oversight is essential to mitigate these risks, and users must constantly critically evaluate AI-generated outputs, ensuring they align with ethical standards and legal principles.
Contextual Judgment: Legal decisions or advice often hinge on subtle factors: client intent, reputational risk, or evolving social norms, none of which AI is equipped to handle. The ability of a lawyer to interpret nuance, weigh competing priorities and apply their judgement is what ensures that legal advice is not only technically sound but also contextually appropriate and strategically aligned.
Insurance: Many legal indemnity insurance policies currently require human oversight of any AI-generated output. This reflects growing concerns about the risks of over-reliance on AI, highlighted by recent high-profile incidents. Examples of over-reliance on AI include: Deloitte having to partially reimburse the Australian government after delivering a report with errors due to the use of AI[1], or a barrister facing disciplinary action for using AI to prepare a brief which contained fictitious cases[2].
A Client’s Perspective
Clients increasingly want to see value for money and the use of AI is an obvious way to provide this. By using AI in a consistent but controlled way, clients can benefit from faster turnaround times, lower costs, and more consistent service.
However, legal services are not just transactional, they are relationship driven. Clients still want reassurance, trust, and tailored advice, things only a human can provide so it is clear there is a balance to be struck.
Conclusion
AI is undeniably enhancing efficiency and unlocking new avenues for innovation in legal services. From document review to predictive analytics, its capabilities are expanding rapidly. But it is essential that these tools operate within a framework of human oversight.
The future of legal services lies in transparent collaboration. The most successful teams will be those that embrace AI as a co-pilot, leveraging its strengths while preserving the human insight that defines the legal profession. The goal isn’t to choose between humans and machines, but to design systems where both work together to deliver better, fairer, and more accessible legal services.
[1] Deloitte Australia to partially refund $290,000 report filled with suspected AI-generated errors | AP News
[2] Barrister using AI citied cases that were 'entirely fictitious' in asylum appeal | LBC