The Benefits of Using a Legal AI Tool
Lawyers have a reputation for being slow to adapt to technology. Still, the fast pace of the legal profession requires lawyers to look for ways to optimize their work in any way possible.
Artificial intelligence for lawyers offers a huge opportunity to take your firm’s work to the next level.
Make Your Work Faster and Easier
Whether the tool reviews contracts, analyzes case law, or speeds up the client intake process, the ultimate goal is to remove tedious, time-consuming, and repetitive tasks from your hands and leave you with work that requires human input.
Conduct Legal Research
AI has a massive ability to dig deep into text and data to pull out insights humans might not catch. That equates to huge time savings for you and gives you an edge as you work through each case.
Making things easier is the primary benefit, but there are secondary benefits that come from that.
Streamline Operations
Your staff and attorneys will be able to get more legal tasks done by using efficient AI tools. This boost in efficiency leads to greater productivity. And that leads to greater profitability for your firm.
Many lawyers fear that generative AI tools will replace them in the coming years. The truth is AI isn't replacing lawyers anytime soon, but it is helping them do their jobs better.
AI isn't just the future. It's the here and now.
Firms that have already embraced AI assistance will outpace the late adopters. There’s a learning curve to using AI, so firms using it right now have an experiential advantage. The sooner you learn to embrace AI in your legal work, the faster you’ll catch up and outpace others.
Investigating the tools on the list below will help you discover ways to level the playing field with early adopters and transform work at your firm.
Ask an attorney what they are most insecure about, and their answer is almost always “when my team goes home for the day.” Why? Because that’s when most law firms leave the call-response to complete strangers. With CaptureNow, you’ll never have this fear again.
It’s time to say goodbye to:
- Long hold times
- Multiple ringtones
- Unreasonably long conversations
- High call center costs
- Unpredictable agents
- Lack of training
- Lack of transparency
- Missed calls
- “…”
The makers of CaptureNow believe that success requires automation, predictability, and transparency.
Unlike call centers, where information flow might be opaque, CaptureNow’s voice bot ensures clarity and consistency in communication. Potential clients of your law firm receive accurate and standardized responses, mitigating misunderstandings or misinformation that may arise from human error or inconsistency.
CaptureNow’s integration capabilities further amplify the value of automation. By seamlessly interfacing with your client’s CRM, CaptureNow ensures that all data from client interactions is efficiently logged and utilized, so clients never have to wonder whether there was more information than their call center agents obtained. CaptureNow’s integration streamlines workflows, facilitates better client management, and ensures that callers are aware of the advanced technological prowess of your law firm.
Whether it’s customized questions, post-call text messages, or welcome messages, CaptureNow ensures that each law firm personalizes its caller’s experience.
The owners of CaptureNow are very familiar with the call center world. They had previously created one of the country’s largest personal injury-focused call centers. What they learned is that call centers are not the future; they are the past. In business, without efficient and reliable solutions, success is only a dream. With technology like CaptureNow, you are one step closer to achieving that dream.
Casetext is one of the best legal research tools on the market. And its new AI tool has the potential to make it even more useful.
Casetext speeds up the research process with its AI assistant called CoCounsel. Casetext and OpenAI built this new assistant on top of GPT-4 with customizations for the legal industry. Casetext claims that CoCounsel can write and comprehend at a postgraduate level.
Casetext also says that CoCounsel goes far beyond legal research.
In addition, the tool can help with:
- Reviewing documents
- Searching databases to discover relevant information
- Preparing for trial
- Summarizing findings
- Laying out the basics for a legal memo
- Verifying contract data and compliance through document analysis
Casetext’s basic plan starts at $110 per month on an annual plan. That gets you access to some AI functionality for legal research. Access to CoCounsel will run you $400 per month, billed annually.
Lex Machina is a legal analytics company owned by LexisNexis.
Their systems use AI technology to review and sort court documents. This lets you discover trends among parties, lawyers, judges, and courts. Data includes findings, damages, and case outcomes.
Lex Machina crawls databases like the USPTO, ITC/EDIS, PACER, and state court data every 24 hours.
That means the AI platform has access to the latest data on millions of cases at any given time. It then uses the data to provide you with a huge range of AI-driven insights. A few things that Lex Machina’s data crunching lets you uncover include:
- Understanding case milestones to set budgets and manage client expectations
- Analyzing how specific judges behave in past cases like your current one
- Uncovering the litigation experience of opposing counsel so you can formulate a game plan
Lex Machina does not have a public-facing pricing model, but they do offer demos.
No list of AI tools is complete if it doesn’t mention ChatGPT.
This generative AI tool from OpenAI is the most well-known AI chatbot on the market today. ChatGPT is not specific to the legal market. But it has too many general use cases for lawyers to pass it up.
An obvious use case of ChatGPT for lawyers is analyzing documents.
Drop a PDF into ChatGPT, ask a few pointed questions, and the AI responds with an answer. This is great if you want a quick summary of a document or if you want to discover insight you may have missed.
ChatGPT can help with things like:
- Reviewing contracts and case files
- Kick-starting the legal research process
- Drafting responses to emails
- Brainstorming ideas
ChatGPT is also useful for the initial drafts of anything from blog posts to legal documents.
The only thing to keep in mind here is that you will need to double-check the tool’s output. Language models like ChatGPT can find all kinds of legal information, but it takes a true expert to craft the output into real legal advice. Think of it as giving you a head start on document drafting rather than giving you a finished product.
ChatGPT has two pricing tiers.
The entry-level tier is free and grants access to the GPT-4o mini model, a lightweight version of the current AI model.
The paid plan only costs $20 per month and grants you access to all the GPT-4 models plus the ability to use custom models. The paid plan also allows you to upload PDFs and images for analysis and gives you early access to advanced features.
Relativity is an AI tool that focuses on making discovery easier.
This tool handles the discovery end to end by helping you:
- Automate workflows for data collection from a variety of sources
- Manage the document review process and view AI insights from a central dashboard
- Streamline the redaction of sensitive data and privileged information
- Translate documents into your language
An interesting advantage is that the AI learns from all of its users, which helps it improve and become faster over time.
198 of the AmLaw 200 use Relativity, but it’s not just for the country's biggest legal practices. The company offers tools to help law firms of any size scale with AI.
Relativity offers flexible pricing plans based on the tools you need. Legal teams that want to use this tool must contact sales for a quote.
Another e-discovery tool that packs a big punch is Everlaw. It's been around for a while, and their AI assistant sees frequent updates to stay on the cutting edge.
This tool, like most AI platforms, improves as you work with it more often. One of the biggest benefits of training this tool on your data is its ability to categorize e-discovery PDFs.
Here's some of what it can do:
- Summarize findings and documents
- Add citations for key evidence
- Answer open-ended questions
Everlaw’s AI assistant is in beta right now, but it’s open to new users.
This tool integrates with many other popular tech tools for lawyers, such as Zoom, Outlook, Slack, and Gmail.
The company says it offers transparent pricing, but ironically, you need to set up a sales demo to find out what that means.
Lawgeex is a contract analysis tool with built-in AI functionality.
Lawgeex’s primary customer is in-house legal departments, so lawyers outside of that context should look before they leap. But it may be worth investigating if you do a lot of contract management.
Lawgeex does not publicize its pricing model. You have to contact sales for a demo before getting a quote.
Latch is a generative AI assistant for contract work and due diligence. Negotiations can take a lot of time out of your day, so Latch steps in to help reduce those hours and your effort.
Latch can do things like:
- Simplify language
- Supply source references for requirements met or not met
- Create custom checklists for every contract
- Provide answers to free-form questions you ask about contracts
- Summarize agreements
Latch works inside of Microsoft Word. All you need to do to use it is open the contract document you’re working on and launch the Latch add-in. That makes for a tempting offer for any Microsoft-based law firm that does a lot of contract work.
Pricing is only available after scheduling a demo.
Smith.ai is a virtual receptionist service that uses AI to improve the client intake process.
Attorneys who hire Smith.ai don't work with the AI directly. Instead, Smith uses AI on their side to route and handle calls for your office during and after work hours. This means you capture valuable data from callers so you can act fast.
The company also offers web chat solutions, so you'll never miss outreach from a prospective client.
Virtual receptionists start at 30 calls for $285 per month, up to $1,950 for 300 calls. Custom enterprise plans are also available. Web chat services start at $140 for 20 live chats each month and go to $600 per month for 120 live chats. They also offer an à la carte payment option for web chat.
This tool is currently in a beta version, but there’s a lot of buzz around it.
That’s because Harvey received a $5 million investment from OpenAI in 2022. The startup later raised $21 million in Series A funding.
The founders of Harvey set out to create a “copilot for lawyers” by training their tool on a backlog of case and legal data. Firms that use it will also be able to add their own data to train the AI.
The specific features and capabilities of this tool aren’t quite clear yet.
However, we do know that the tool uses natural language processing for drafting legal documents and reviewing them. For example, a lawyer could ask if any clauses in a document violate specific laws and ask Harvey to rewrite the clause if so. Or a lawyer could ask it questions about relevant case law or precedents when preparing a motion.
Only a select few law firms have beta access to the tool, but any firm can join the waitlist.
Law.co is a powerhouse platform designed to revolutionize law firms and legal professionals' operations. With an array of cutting-edge features, Law.co leverages artificial intelligence to streamline contract review, automate legal drafting, enhance legal research, and much more.
Law.co uses GPT and an advanced semantic search engine to give you powerful access to queries with contextual understanding and continuous learning capabilities. A big plus is that this tool is also multilingual, which is excellent for firms that offer services in multiple languages.
The free plan offers limited daily access to document views, case summaries, database searches, case downloads, and contract drafting. For $49 a month, you get unlimited access to these, access and contribution to the contract/clause template library, and generative AI for contract drafting and compliance review.
There’s also a $99/month plan that offers all this plus some other special features, including GPT clause drafting, AI negotiation, and unlimited generative AI contract drafting.
This legal AI tool aims to redefine the traditional process of drafting demand packages. It does this by offering attorneys a way to secure higher settlements more efficiently by using AI to compile massive amounts of data and draft settlement offers with greater efficiency and more attention to detail. Its big selling point is its AI-driven approach to medical summaries, which includes flagging missing bills or records, assigning ICD codes to injuries, summarizing treatment providers and dates, and highlighting key elements of each visit. This tool will also flag missing documents, helping you identify potential pitfalls and make sure that each case is airtight.
Users can upload documents directly through the EvenUp portal or integrate with existing practice management legal software.
The software then automatically extracts all relevant details from medical records, including injuries, procedures, and treatment timelines, which helps you, as an attorney, create compelling narratives for your client. This kind of digital storytelling can be a game-changer for managing cases and promises to save paralegals 5+ hours on every claim.
Offering a personalized experience for your firm’s needs is also one of EvenUp’s selling points. Pricing scales with your caseload, meaning that you’ll see bigger payoffs and more cost reductions with more use.
What to Look for in Legal AI Tools
Picking your ideal tools supported by AI isn't as simple as choosing one off the shelf.
Verifying if a tool is the right choice for you comes down to a few key considerations. That includes taking into account:
- Data security
- Whether the tool suits your firm's needs
- Ease of use
- Integrations with the tools you already use
Data Security
All AI legal tools should offer you some data security protection.
You work with a lot of sensitive data. Any software developer owes it to their users to keep this in mind when developing new versions.
A few tools did not make this list because they were unclear on their security considerations. Look for any notes on security on the AI tool’s website to determine whether it’s up to snuff for your firm.
Whether the Tool Fits Your Needs
You need AI tools that accomplish the tasks you want to work on the most.
For example, firms that don't do a lot of contracting work shouldn’t waste time looking into the redlining tools on this list.
Most lawyers benefit from using tools like ChatGPT, even if it’s just for cleaning up email responses. Another area of your business that’s a good place to consider adding AI is in the legal research process.
Ease of Use
Some AI tools have complicated interfaces or a steep learning curve. The last thing you want is to pay for something you're not comfortable using. Steer clear of:
- AI tools with bad interfaces
- AI tools where reviews mention bugs or frequent crashes
- AI tools that take a lot of initial time to train on
The good news on this front is that legal AI companies are lean and hungry startups or have made big investments in their platform. They want to sell you on it. It's why so many offer detailed demos or come with comprehensive onboarding to get lawyers, paralegals, and legal assistants up to speed.
Integrations with Existing Tools
It's a huge value add when an AI tool you're thinking about already integrates with things you use. Make a list of the software you use in your legal practice and ask about or research integrations with the AI tools above.
For example, Clio integrates with services like Smith.ai and Casetext. That functionality could be huge if you already use Clio for case management.
Incorporate AI into Your Practice
Integrating AI into your law firm makes it much easier for you to get things done with a high level of accuracy. Efficiency gains from AI translate into more time spent providing legal services to clients. And those gains add up to a boost in profitability.
New applications emerge every day in the legal world.
Staying on top of these emerging tools and how they can help your firm will keep you on the cutting edge. Not every tool will be right for your firm. But the ones that are a fit will help you stay competitive in a world that’s rapidly adopting artificial intelligence.Lawyers at the top of their game are always on the lookout to keep their law firms competitive. Adding new legal AI tech to the mix is one of the best ways to systematize a practice while improving client services.AI legal tech opens the door to increased productivity and profitability at your firm.Artificial intelligence lets you automate and improve processes with machine learning. AI for lawyers makes things like legal research and e-discovery simple, letting you sift through more data than ever before. Unleashing legal AI tools on your case materials surfaces surprising insights that would take a person hours or days to uncover.It’s hard to keep up with all the new AI-powered tools for legal professionals, so we put this list together to help you find the right fit. Here are 11 of the best AI tools worth checking out.
