Legal Practice Redefined: The Role of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly becoming a key component of business operations across numerous industries, including the legal field. A recent study titled Generative AI in Legal 2024 highlighted the growing adoption of AI for tasks such as document review, contract analysis, and legal research.

Among these applications, document review is expected to emerge as the top use case for AI in the legal industry. According to the report, 65% of surveyed professionals intend to implement AI for document review in the coming year, with this figure rising to 95% over the next five years. Let’s take a closer look at the role AI is playing in the legal sector and the advantages it offers to legal practitioners.

How AI is enhancing efficiency in legal

AI has the potential to completely revolutionise efficiency in law firms and legal departments. Document review could be transformed by AI, taking one of the most labour-intensive and time-consuming tasks in legal work and performing it within a few seconds. 

It also provides assurance to legal teams as the job can be completed just as accurately as if carried out by humans, with the ability to flag inconsistencies, identify relevant precedents, and even create insights from historical data. By using AI in this way, legal professionals have more time and a clearer focus to work on more strategic tasks. 

In addition to document review, contract analysis and legal research, AI can also be beneficial in automating other routine tasks, which frees up time for legal teams to dedicate their time and skills to more complex issues and allows them to be more productive. 

It offers a reliable tool for automating administrative tasks and effectively eases the pressure on legal professionals. Whilst document review is expected to be the leading use for AI over the next few years, the study revealed that currently, the biggest uses for AI in the legal sector are research and contract analysis. 

Reducing costs and streamlining processes

As well as the uses discussed above, legal professionals reported that their main motivations for implementing AI were reducing costs and automating routine tasks to streamline workflows. Automation is an invaluable feature for legal organisations as it can save a significant amount of time and ensure that document processes are running seamlessly. This is essential in a sector that handles large quantities of official documents and sensitive information. 

58% of respondents claimed automation was a driving force behind using AI, closely followed by 48% emphasising better cost efficiency. By using AI and automation, legal teams can fully digitise their document processes, reducing the required costs on paper, printing, ink, postage, fax machines, and storage. Therefore, this budget can be better allocated to other important areas of the organisation.

Increasing demand for AI governance

Due to the sensitive nature of the legal sector and the cases that are managed, organisations expect a high standard of governance for AI in order for them to integrate it securely and successfully. Almost 78% of respondents expressed the need for robust governance standards from AI providers alongside clear ethical principles. 

This emphasis on governance demonstrates the legal sector’s commitment to maintaining data security and confidentiality. AI is a powerful tool and it needs to be used correctly to ensure legal firms and teams can maximise the important benefits it can provide, whilst also allowing professionals to continually uphold the high standards of privacy and protecting sensitive data that are pillars of the sector as a whole. 

Data privacy and bias

The growing adoption of AI across the sector naturally raises some concerns over data privacy, which is why using a provider that has strict governance and security measures in place is essential. Data security continues to be a top priority for legal professionals. Also, the report found that there was some apprehension around data bias and quality. Any mistakes in these areas could directly impact important cases and legal decision-making. Therefore, legal organisations need to feel confident when using AI for certain tasks that they will be completed accurately as well as more efficiently.

AI as a competitive tool

AI can present an opportunity for legal organisations large and small to gain a competitive advantage in the market through streamlining and optimising their workflows to maximise efficiency. This is because they can save time by automating tasks that don’t require specialist expertise and AI can be adopted for billing models. 

Legal firms that operate using billable hours are often more inclined to use AI than those using task-based billing models. From this, we can deduce that billable-hour companies are motivated to reduce non-billable work and increase productivity on higher-priority tasks that will generate revenue. 

Training and skills development with AI

The report also highlighted the need for further training and skills development with AI amongst legal teams. Around 73% of respondents said that their organisations were investing in training related to AI to improve their understanding of how to use it effectively. This includes on-the-job training, employee education programmes, and third-party consulting. 

Upskilling with AI is essential for not only maximising its benefits and capabilities but also for mitigating risks as much as possible. AI and automation technology are constantly evolving, which means it is important for legal companies to prioritise skills development to safely incorporate AI into their workflows and develop a foundation to grow AI usage sustainably.

How can E-Sign support the legal sector?

As an industry-leading provider of electronic signatures and digital document solutions, E-Sign is aware of the importance of AI and automation in supporting the legal sector to ensure their daily workflows can be completed more efficiently. Here’s what E-Sign’s Managing Director, Tom Taylor had to say about the role of AI in legal:

“AI is developing quickly and despite the understandable reservations of the legal sector around data privacy and security when using AI, it’s become such a high quality and valuable tool that those risks are significantly minimised and massively outweighed by the benefits that AI can provide to legal firms. 

AI and automation can save legal firms so much time, make their processes more efficient and productive, and simplify collaboration between legal teams and clients. The adoption of AI is showing no signs of slowing down and legal firms risk getting left behind if they don’t work to update their processes to reflect modern times.”

eWitnessing and conveyancer-certified signatures

E-Sign can help legal firms streamline their document transactions, ensuring they are signed quickly and securely through our platform. Also, by integrating E-Sign with your existing systems, you can effectively implement automation to reduce the time and resources required for administrative tasks. E-Sign’s solutions can be tailored to meet the specific needs of the legal sector. For example, we offer eWitnessing and conveyancer-certified electronic signatures.

Our eWitnessing feature allows users to create an envelope and allocate a requirement for a witness to sign the document. The document author or signer can identify and enter the details of the witness. The witness will receive an email with a link to complete two-factor SMS authentication before accessing and signing the document. 

This feature is extremely important to the legal sector as various types of documents require a witness. And this process allows a witness to sign the document in a faster and more efficient way which benefits all parties. The HM Land Registry now accepts electronic signatures on several documents related to property transactions. These are known as conveyancer-certified e-signatures. 

With our electronic signature and digital document solution, legal organisations can have complete peace of mind that their property document transactions are compliant with the required regulations. Documents can be signed faster and more efficiently with our conveyancer-certified e-signatures, which helps to avoid delays in important processes.

Conclusion

From the findings of the Generative AI in Legal report, it’s clear that AI is on track to become a must-have tool in legal workflows. Especially in time-consuming admin-style tasks like document review and contract analysis. As the use of AI in the legal sector continues to grow, firms will need to ensure that they can still maintain their ethical standards in data protection and confidentiality to establish client trust and meet regulatory requirements. Whilst utilising automation to improve their operational efficiency. Despite these challenges, there is a lot of potential for AI in the legal sector. It will be exciting to see what the future holds and the improvements that can be made to the industry as a whole. 

If you’re looking to optimise your document transactions, save time and money, and boost productivity in your legal firm, E-Sign can help. Contact us today and our digital transformation team will be able to discuss your requirements and find the right solution that meets your business needs. You can also get started with E-Sign by registering for our 14-day free trial and exploring the features and functionality of the platform for yourself to see how it could work for your document processes.