What’s Next in AI Tools for Lawyers

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been around in some form for decades, but it has only been in the past few years, since generative AI has become widespread, that AI has had a real impact on how law offices operate and do business. 

As with any emerging technology, AI for lawyers carries both risk and opportunity. Two things are for certain: AI is not going away, and it will continue to transform the practice of law. It’s not something to be feared; it’s a tool that, used properly, can help your practice operate at its highest level.

Navigating technological change in a profession that tends to be conservative can be intimidating, but you’ve successfully managed other recent tech developments (Zoom hearings, anyone?) and probably found that they made your life, and your practice, easier. Legal AI tools can do the same.

The Evolution of Generative AI for Lawyers

Generative Pre-Trained Performer (GPT, for short) was in limited use in legal settings as early as the 2010s; some legal tech companies were experimenting with early models (GPT-2 and GPT-3) for document drafting and legal research, but in general the technology wasn’t reliable enough for practical application in real client matters. 

In November 2022 ChatGPT (GPT 3.5) launched. Suddenly, legal AI was widely accessible, because lawyers didn’t have to be able to code to use it. Law firms used the technology for drafting memos and motions, contract review, even writing first drafts of client-facing content. 

With the release of GPT-4 in March 2023, AI for lawyers went even more mainstream, as it began to be incorporated into legal-specific platforms like Harvey and CoCounsel. (If you think of GPT as the engine, these and similar platforms would be custom-built vehicles for legal drivers.) With legal-specific platforms, use of generative AI to cut down on repetitive tasks like drafting engagement letters or summarizing transcripts became widespread.

GPT-5 is expected to launch in 2025, with enhanced reasoning, advanced multimodal capabilities, and increased accuracy.

How Law Offices are Using Legal AI Tools

A Bloomberg Law report showed that lawyers were using generative AI in their practice in a variety of ways. Of the professionals surveyed:

• 58% were using generative AI to draft or template communications such as memos, emails, and correspondence
• 53% were using legal research AI
• 43% were using AI to summarize legal narratives
• 34% of professionals were using AI to review legal document;
• 21% were using the technology to conduct due diligence 
• 15% of lawyers were using it to review discovery

Smaller percentages were also using generative AI in other ways, such as negotiating and redlining contracts; preparing case filings; and even creating estate plans. Two years later, those percentages have almost certainly grown, and law firms continue to find additional use cases for generative AI as the technology evolves and becomes more reliable. 

But the continued development of generative AI isn’t the last word in artificial intelligence for law practice. There’s a new kid in town: agentic AI. 

What is Agentic AI?

While generative AI creates content based on patterns it has been trained to recognize, agentic AI, as its name suggests, has agency. It can act autonomously, or at least semi-autonomously, toward a goal. Agentic AI can link tasks together, make decisions, take actions, and, well…adapt. 

For instance, in terms of legal research AI,  generative AI can summarize case law or legal opinions in plain language, or suggest relevant statutes and case law in response to a prompt including a factual scenario. (Some of those statutes or cases might be from another jurisdiction, so you’ll need to review carefully.)

Agentic AI, on the other hand, can run an ongoing search across multiple legal databases like Westlaw and Lexis Nexis and keep watch for new rulings or statutes that come out and update its results. It will automatically cross-reference similar cases, flag inconsistencies between cases, and over time, build a research memo over time. You don’t have to hold its (virtual) hand or give it repeated prompts. 

In short, law firms will be able to use agentic AI as agents—performers of tasks. But as with work done by a law clerk or a paralegal, the buck stops with the attorney who sets the agent in motion.

What Agentic AI Looks Like in Practice

Remember a few paragraphs back when we likened GPT to an engine, and the legal software that includes it as the vehicle it powers? Agentic AI, like generative AI before it, will often be found embedded in software that makes its use natural and intuitive. Some examples:

With Harvey, agentic AI may be embedded into firm-specific workflows, where it auto-drafts documents like NDAs based on intake information, checks the documents for missing clauses, and then submits the revised drafts for attorney review. 

Spellbook for Microsoft Word has agentic AI running in the program’s sidebar. Like an editor at an attorney’s elbow, it scans for ambiguities in a drafter’s language and offers suggestions for greater clarity in real time. The software’s newest feature is multi-document workflows that break goals down into tasks it then executes.

Ironclad CLM boasts the ability to “cut contract processing time by 80%.” The software flags unusual terms during contract review and suggests alternate language—then routes the document and proposals to the appropriate party within the firm or business. Robin AI promises similar increased efficiency in contract review speed and workflows. 

CoCounsel by Thomson Reuters functions as a litigation assistant, performing tasks like legal research and deposition review. For the latter, a lawyer could upload the transcript of a deposition and have CoCounsel identify inconsistent testimony and recommend follow-up questions and lines of inquiry.

Lexis+ AI bills itself as “an integrated solution for legal drafting, research and insights” that combines the power of a personalized AI assistant with authoritative content, promising to help lawyers make faster, better informed decisions.

Other commonly used legal software programs, like Clio Duo, may not be fully agentic yet, but they can still streamline case management and other tasks, helping firms operate more efficiently. But there’s no doubt that agentic AI is the future of artificial intelligence for law practice, so it’s likely that legal software that doesn’t have agentic capabilities yet will have it soon. 

What Does the Evolutions of AI Mean for Small Law Firms?

Instead of just streamlining individual tasks, AI will be able to automate entire workflows, chaining steps together and managing them end-to-end with relatively little oversight. In some ways, programs will be able to act as project managers, coordinating work between human staff and AI tools, including sending reminders when tasks need human eyes or hands on them. 

The bottom line for small law firms is that AI won’t be replacing lawyers or other professional team members. But it will free them up for more strategic work and release them from the drudgery of essential, but repetitive tasks. That can enable smaller legal offices to take on more work and do it better, boosting their competitiveness. 

The growing use of legal AI tools means that law offices will also need to incorporate guidance on the ethical use and oversight into their law firm policies and training. Protecting client confidentiality will, of course, be essential. It’s important to choose vendors that explicitly promise no data training using your information, and to train your staff on AI-safe prompt writing.

 It’s also critical to be aware, up front, of where data is stored, who has access, and what happens in the event of a data breach. In general, using legal-specific platforms better protects client confidentiality. That said, it’s still important to ask vendors about confidentiality measures before signing on the dotted line and to periodically audit legal AI tools to ensure they are protecting data as promised.

Learn More About AI for Lawyers

The Modern Firm has been working with small law firms and evolving technology for over 20 years. If you have questions about artificial intelligence legal research software, or other AI advancements for your law firm, just reach out.