[Article on Best AI Software for Law Firms by Former Lawyer turned Legal Tech & AI Blogger, Gav Ward; Updated 17 Nov 2024]
In recent years, AI has become the next big thing in efficiency and productivity for law firms. ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Co-Pilot, Google’s Gemini, Perplexity, Amazon Q, Harvey and hundreds of specialist legal AI applications are now available – all of which can be used to make lawyers’ working lives easier and more efficient.
Below are some of the leading AI providers to law firms and some insight pieces (now with ChatGPT by OpenAI mentioned too). You may also want to see our list of some of the Best Legal Technology Companies for Law Firms and see also our guide to ‘How to Make a Legal GPT Legally using Open AI’s Chat GPT-4 Builder’ here.
In addition to considering the list of AI for law firms systems below, it’s also worth listening to the expert, independent legal tech consultancy advice of Alex Hutchinson, IT Director for law firms and Founder of Hutchinson & Company – see the banner above for more information.
And if you need help with your law firm’s digital marketing using new leading AI techniques speak to MLT Digital.
Best Artificial Intelligence (AI) Software for Law Firms – What’s it Most Useful For?
Particularly relevant for commercial law firms for certain types of work, such as due diligence, compliance, contract management, document management and more, having an effective AI solution can mean big savings on your lawyers’ time, allowing them to focus on adding value where it matters.
Top AI Legal Sector Providers & Solutions
“Law AI – The ultimate artificial intelligence (AI) platform for lawyers and law firms. Digitize and optimize legal operations with AI”; “Automate & Streamline Legal Research – The fusion of GPT technology with semantic search from our custom-trained legal database of over 1,000,000 cases an over 20,000 contracts can revolutionize your legal research.” Led by CEO Nate Nead who also runs a leading US-based digital agency https://seo.co/law/ which may be of interest to US law firms. For SEO for UK law firms see https://www.mltdigital.co.uk/guides/seo-for-law-firms/ . Learn how to use the Law.co artificial intelligence platform for law firms on the demo page here.
- GenieAI – The World’s Most Secure AI Legal Assistant w/ 94%+ Accuracy
An old-school powerhouse of AI kit for commercial law firms for contract and document review. As they note, “Kira is a powerful machine learning software that identifies, extracts, and analyzes text in your contracts and other documents.”; “Kira’s leading machine learning contract analysis technology has helped top teams globally.”
It wouldn’t be a complete list of AI tools for lawyers and law firms if we didn’t mention ChatGPT – as they note “We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.”
We asked ChatGPT-4 to “write a statement about why openai is a leading ai tool for lawyers”. It replied to us, very honestly, with:-
“OpenAI is a research organization that develops and promotes friendly artificial intelligence. While OpenAI has developed a number of AI tools and technologies, it is not a specific AI tool that can be used by lawyers. However, the research and development conducted by OpenAI has the potential to contribute to the advancement of AI technologies that may be useful to lawyers in various ways. For example, natural language processing technology developed by OpenAI could be used to analyze and organize legal documents, or to assist in legal research. Additionally, machine learning algorithms developed by OpenAI could be used to predict the outcomes of legal cases or to assist in risk assessment for legal decisions. Overall, the work of OpenAI has the potential to have a significant impact on the field of law and the legal profession.”
As mentioned above, ChatGPT has not been designed to be used only by lawyers. This AI software can be used in any company, especially for administrative tasks such as drafting company wide emails or creating schedules. Additionally, ChatGPT comes in handy during recruitment as it can offer questions, judging criteria and even draft rejection emails.
“Our contract summarizer enables you to swiftly extract essential details from lengthy documents. Save time and make well-informed decisions!…ContractCrab represents an innovative contract management solution, transforming how businesses navigate their contractual obligations. Fueled by advanced artificial intelligence, Contract Crab specializes in shortening contracts, efficiently streamlining lengthy legal documents with precision. This cutting-edge tool not only saves valuable time but also enhances readability and comprehension for a more streamlined and effective contract management process.“
“Our artificial intelligence and powerful document and email management creates connections across data, systems, and people while leveraging the context of organizational content to fuel deep insights, informed business decisions, and collaboration…iManage AI is a new AI engine built natively into our knowledge work cloud platform. Developed based on our deep experience in artificial intelligence technologies, iManage AI enables customers to improve productivity, drive additional value from knowledge assets, and protect data against security risks.”
An AI tool designed to improve legal document translation for law firms, corporations, and government agencies. This solution combines advanced machine learning with industry expertise to deliver highly accurate and secure translations for a wide range of legal documents, including contracts and patents. With a focus on reliability and compliance, LegalTranslations.com offers optional human review services for added assurance. As a Tomedes innovation, it addresses the unique translation challenges of the legal industry, streamlining workflows and facilitating global communication.
- Allen & Overy’s co-pilot Harvey – the innovative artificial intelligence platform (announced 16th February 2023)
“Allen & Overy (A&O), the leading international law firm, has broken new ground by integrating Harvey, the innovative artificial intelligence platform built on a version of Open AI’s latest models enhanced for legal work, into its global practice. Harvey will empower more than 3,500 of A&O’s lawyers across 43 offices operating in multiple languages with the ability to generate and access legal content with unmatched efficiency, quality and intelligence.
A&O has been trialling Harvey in beta since November 2022 under the leadership of a team of lawyers and developers tasked with disrupting the legal industry, called the Markets Innovation Group (MIG). At the end of the trial, around 3500 of A&O’s lawyers had asked Harvey around 40,000 queries for their day-to-day client work.” Fantastic article and insights on this from Caroline Hill here.
Integrates AI for smart document management and project collaboration in legal and corporate settings; Provides AI-enabled tools for workflow automation, enhancing efficiency in team collaboration and client communication; ““Speed, efficiency, and user-friendliness of HighQ are key benefits for anyone. There’s not much training required, it’s easy to navigate and really professional.” Chloe Muir, Sr Grad. Recruitment and Development Manager, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner; 93% of the FTSE 100 rely on HighQ; 75% of the Fortune 500 are HighQ clients; 53% of global 100 law firms use HighQ.
Features a no-code, AI-powered platform for building automated legal and compliance applications. Allows users to create AI-driven decision-making tools and workflows, enhancing efficiency in legal service delivery. “Leading law firms and corporate Legal teams use BRYTER to streamline intake, automate complex decisions, and self-serve recurring requests.”
Incorporates AI for advanced electronic signature technology and secure document management. Uses AI to streamline the process of signing and managing documents online across various industries. “The DocuSign Agreement Cloud for Legal Departments can help you do more with less–and help you deliver significant value to the business. It’s a platform that streamlines processes and automates workflows, standardises and analyses contract language and centrally stores all your agreements.”
Employs AI to enable non-technical users to create custom business apps without coding. Provides AI-assisted design and deployment tools for mobile and web applications, primarily used in legal sectors.
Offers an AI-enhanced transaction management platform, focusing on legal transaction streamlining. Features AI-driven document automation, signature management, and closing checklists to optimise deal closings in law firms. “In any given deal, there are countless paper documents, revisions, and signatures to review, negotiate, and track. Lawyers get bogged down in the chaos of administrative tasks and, unfortunately, the time spent searching for attachments, managing signatures, and creating closing books gets written-off.”
- Luminance – Artificial Intelligence for Legal Due Diligence
“Luminance is the market-leading artificial intelligence platform for the legal industry. Luminance understands language the way humans do, in volumes and at speeds that humans will never achieve. It provides an immediate and global overview of any company, picking out warning signs without needing any instruction.”
“Founded by mathematicians from the University of Cambridge, Luminance uniquely combines supervised and unsupervised machine learning to read and form an understanding of legal documentation, in any language and jurisdiction.”; “Luminance is used by over 300 law firms and organisations in over 55 countries and in more than 80 languages across a wide range of practice areas, including M&A due diligence, property portfolio analysis, eDiscovery, contract negotiation and model document comparison.”
“Law firms and chambers who have been slower to adopt new technologies, struggle to compete with providers who can deliver legal services quickly, accurately and cost-effectively. We have 20+ years of experience in providing technology to legal practitioners and our trusted solutions deliver the benefits of Cloud security, agility, accuracy, 24/7 system access and fast communication channels”;”Along with our Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Services expertise we can turn your data into one of your organisation’s greatest assets and make sure that you are using it in the most beneficial way.”
“Award-winning legal advice, tools and training to spot, manage and minimise business risks; educating your business to stay on the right side of the law and guiding it to safety if legal problems do arise. Protect your organisation and let it fly.”
“As legal innovation continues to reshape the practice of law, firms are becoming increasingly aware of the value of technology in supporting a range of legal activities. With unparalleled precision-search capabilities and a sophisticated suite of easy-to-use tools, Nalytics® alleviates the burden of routine search, discovery and analytical tasks, freeing up resources and affording you time to invest in the work that really matters.”
“Lex Machina mines litigation data, revealing insights never before available about judges, lawyers, parties, and the subjects of the cases themselves, culled from millions of pages of litigation information. We call these insights Legal Analytics®, because analytics involves the discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in data.”
What kind of artificial intelligence is especially useful to lawyers?
Artificial intelligence comes in a variety of forms, some of which can be helpful to lawyers.
- Natural Language Processing (NLP): Artificial intelligence (AI) that uses natural language processing (NLP) can assist lawyers with activities including document inspection, contract analysis, and e-discovery. In order to extract information from legal papers, such as highlighting crucial clauses or summarising their contents, NLP can also be employed.
- Machine Learning: Large volumes of data can be analysed using machine learning to find patterns, categorise documents, and forecast case outcomes. This can assist attorneys with responsibilities like case management, legal research, and trial outcome forecasting.
- Computer Vision: In order to recognise text in an image or extract data from a table, computer vision can be used to extract information from images. This can be helpful for activities like obtaining information from contracts, legal documents, and forms.
- Robotics Process Automation (RPA): RPA can be used to automate repetitive tasks such as data entry, document management, and invoice processing. This can help lawyers improve efficiency and reduce errors.
- Virtual Assistants: Virtual Assistants can be used to help lawyers with scheduling, responding to client emails, and other administrative tasks.
It’s worth noting that while AI can be a useful tool for lawyers, it’s important to use it in a manner that’s consistent with legal ethics and regulations.
How AI is used in law firms?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being increasingly used in law firms to improve efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness. Some of the ways in which AI is being used in law firms include:
- Contract review: Large numbers of contracts may be quickly analysed using AI-powered contract review software, which can also pinpoint important provisions and potential problems. This can save lawyers a lot of time and lower the possibility of human error.
- Predictive coding: Large volumes of data, such case-related papers, can be sorted through using predictive coding software to find pertinent information. By doing this, lawyers will be able to access the information they require more quickly and make better conclusions.
- Legal research: The vast body of case law and statutes for most jurisdictions can be quickly searched through using AI-powered legal research tools to locate pertinent information. This can help lawyers access the data they need to create a case more quickly and save them a lot of time.
- Chatbots: Chatbots are other tools used by law firms to give clients instant access to information about legal services and procedures. This can help legal firms in providing better client service and lightening the load on their lawyers. Until 2023 most chatbots for law firms were basic but with ChatGPT and others now on the market this is changing the game.
- Automating document drafting: AI-powered document automation software can help lawyers to quickly and accurately draft legal documents such as contracts, agreements and other legal documents.
- eDiscovery: AI-powered eDiscovery software can help law firms quickly identify, classify, and analyze relevant data in the context of a legal case.
- Predictive analytics: Predictive analytics can help law firms to identify potential legal risks and make better-informed decisions.
AI technology is being used by law firms to streamline their processes, improve the quality of legal services, and improve the overall efficiency of their operations. As more and more law firms use these technologies to enhance their performance, it is anticipated that the use of AI technology in law firms will increase in the coming years.
How is the rise of legal technology and AI impacting law firms?
The rise of legal technology and AI is having a massive impact on some types of law firms. Some of the ways in which this impact is being felt include:
- Increased Efficiency: Legal technology and AI are helping law firms to automate routine tasks and streamline their processes. This is leading to increased efficiency and cost savings for law firms.
- Improved Accuracy: AI-powered tools such as contract review software and predictive coding are helping lawyers to identify key clauses and potential issues in legal documents, which in turn improves the accuracy of their work.
- Reduced Costs: By automating routine tasks and reducing the need for manual labor, legal technology and AI are helping law firms to lower their costs. This is particularly important in a highly competitive and cost-sensitive legal market.
- Greater Access to Legal Services: Legal technology and AI are making it easier for people to access legal services. For example, chatbots and online legal research tools are making legal information more accessible to the general public.
- Changes in the way legal services are delivered: The rise of legal technology and AI is leading to a shift in the way legal services are delivered, with more emphasis on remote working and virtual communication.
- New opportunities: The rise of legal technology and AI is creating new opportunities for law firms, such as the development of new software and services, as well as new business models.
- Job displacement: The use of legal technology and AI to automate tasks previously performed by lawyers may lead to job displacement, lawyers may need to upskill themselves to work with these technology to stay relevant in the market.
Overall, the rise of legal technology and AI is having a significant impact on law firms, leading to increased efficiency, improved accuracy, reduced costs, and greater access to legal services. Law firms that are able to effectively adopt and utilize legal technology and AI will be better positioned to compete in the legal market of the future.
Will AI take over the legal profession?
It’s unlikely that AI will entirely replace the legal industry. Despite the fact that AI can automate some operations and increase efficiency, some legal duties need for human judgement and knowledge.
AI can help lawyers by automating repetitive processes like contract analysis, legal research, and document review. These resources are made to help attorneys rather than to take the place of them. They still need lawyers to analyse the findings and reach judgements.
By spotting potential problems and inconsistencies in legal papers, AI can also help to increase the correctness of legal work. However, human lawyers will still need to make the final judgement choices.
Additionally, human connection and communication are essential to the legal profession and are challenging for AI to mimic. Clients frequently want to speak with a live person and feel confident that a qualified expert is taking care of their legal requirements and concerns.
Furthermore, the legal industry is highly regulated, and it is unclear how authorities will react to legal papers and judgements produced by AI.
In conclusion, AI will undoubtedly alter the legal industry, but it’s unlikely that it will totally replace human attorneys. Instead, it will support lawyers’ job by automating repetitive processes and giving them better resources for legal analysis and research. For their profession to remain competitive and relevant, lawyers will need to learn new skills and adjust to new technology.
More Insights into AI for Law Firms
There are many insight and opinion pieces about AI and technology for law firms across the web – here are a few that are worth checking out:-
- Artificial intelligence closes in on the work of junior lawyers (FT)
- Artificial intelligence disrupting the business of law (FT)
- Artificial intelligence is coming for law firms (Axios)
- Legal technology: a gap in AI (Law Society Gazette)
- Artificial Intelligence trends and their impact on the legal sector
- UK law firm to roll out artificial intelligence software to replace paralegals (Association of American Law Schools)
- Artificial Intelligence for Legal Contract Review (Law Technology Today)
- Mark Thorley comments on the importance of technology and courts
- How law firms are taking advantage of artificial intelligence advancements
More to follow. If you are part of a leading provider of AI software solutions for law firms and you would like to apply for your own listing with us please contact us here.
See also our new page: 95+ Top Legal Technologist Heroes in the UK (Scotland, England & Wales and NI). And our new directory of some of the UK’s best legal technologists, leaders and consultants is available here:- In beta, if you have any feedback or changes you’d like to request please do get in touch:-
- Best Legal Technologists & Consultants in Scotland click here.
- Best Legal Technologists & Consultants in England click here.
Also, if you’re interested in the future of legal practice, we have also written a guide to the modern Virtual Law Firms / ‘Dispersed’ Firms that provide opportunities for self-employed / freelance solicitors. And you may also be interested in our guide to some of the best online legal forms providers if you’re looking for DIY online law document templates for your business or for yourself personally.
