AI Usage Creates Legal Work
Clients are increasingly sending lawyers large volumes of AI-generated letters, emails, questions, etc
If you are building your commercial awareness for law firm applications, our Commercial Awareness hub covers current deals, sector developments, and how to use them in applications and interviews.
Clients are increasingly sending lawyers large volumes of AI-generated letters, emails, questions, etc. The big jump in material lawyers are receiving means they are stuck spending more time reviewing and responding to this content, driving up legal bills.
A partner at a US litigation firm notes that they have received so much AI material that they could only respond to the client at appropriate intervals. And both Addleshaw Goddard and Mishcon de Reya have highlighted this issue at their respective firms, noting the influx in AI-generated correspondence across all practice areas.
Rather than reducing workload, AI in this context is unexpectedly creating a larger amount of work for lawyers. Since lawyers are required to meticulously validate and respond to output that is now likely more verbose and inaccurate, AI is acting as a friction point in the lawyer-client relationship.
Whilst AI is a great consumer-side tool, enabling clients to generate complex output more efficiently, this ease does not translate as well to lawyers who have to bear the cognitive load of identifying subtle errors or hallucinations that are still highly probable with current AI models.
What does this mean for the legal sector?
- Law firms operating on fixed fee models (charging one amount for a deal no matter how long it takes) will see profits eroded as lawyers are unnecessarily engaged for longer hours.
- Firms alternatively billing hourly (with the final bill depending on hours spent) are better insulated against this development but might face client pushback if the final bill is too high.
- The trend will likely accelerate AI adoption at law firms, as developing in-house AI models would efficiently deal with AI material sent over by clients.
How to use this in applications
The most immediate work here would actually be for the pricing teams within law firms that calculate how much clients owe. As fixed fee contracts become less attractive due to AI, the pricing teams will have to revisit scope of work clauses in client contracts to reassess the firm’s approach to AI correspondence. Scope of work clauses tackle the specific tasks and deliverables to do with a certain matter.
Within litigation specifically, clients will be using AI to suggest case strategies. Lawyers will have to very critically assess whether these strategies are sound, given how litigation often involves creative advocacy that ventures into legal grey areas.
And in corporate / transactional teams, another issue that arises is when clients want AI-generated letters or correspondence to be sent on their law firm’s letterhead. What this means is that the client drafts a message but wants the law firm to send it to the opposing party on their behalf as this carries greater formality or threat. The issue, however, is that anything sent under the firm’s name carries significant professional and reputational risk - anything legally / strategically inaccurate or inappropriate will have to be very carefully weeded out.
We explain how this story can be discussed in written applications and interviews. Register now for free to unlock the full article.
Register now to unlock the full free article
