8 AI use Cases
in a 9-Grid Perspective

Whether you’re opening LinkedIn, taking a ​‘scroll’ on X (formerly Twitter), or browsing the web for your favorite contract drafting and negotiation solution on the market (😉), it hasn’t been hard to come across an opinion, observation, or news item about the influence of Artificial Intelligence in the Legal Tech landscape.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of available information is, in one way or another, biased towards specific use cases or products. That’s why we wanted to create a helpful overview for anyone evaluating what to invest in next.

In this blog, we review 8 different use cases and share their typical impact on adding value to clients (eg. higher quality of work, more consistency, more time for client-facing activities, etc.), what efficiency gains your team can achieve by leveraging AI in this particular use case, and the time-to-value that a Legal Tech solution can provide to push each use case to new heights. And, since we’re talking about how technology can impact the lives of legal professionals on a day-to-day basis, we’ll share how much human validation is required to set up and maintain these solutions. As icing on the cake, we put our findings into a handy matrix.

In this 9‑box grid, we focused on the 8 use cases we know best from engaging with our prospects, customers, and partners. The areas we covered are practice management, contract generation, complex reviewing and negotiation, contract proofreading, client relationship management, knowledge management, legal research, and case management. If you are looking to explore more and other use cases, we particularly liked this overview by Kerry Westland, Head of Innovation at Addleshaw Goddard.

TL;DR: The overview you’ve all been waiting for

The Matrix: The break-down

The title above almost sounds like yet another sequel to the epic sci-fi trilogy, but really we just wanted an equally grand introduction to get you excited to break down the 9‑box grid step by step – or rather use case by use case.

1. Practice management

• Definition
  Practice management software streamlines law firm operations, offering tools for calendaring, time tracking, billing, and client management, enhancing efficiency and organization in legal practices. An example of the output that practice management software can generate is a Case Summary Report: This comprehensive report provides legal professionals with a quick overview of the case’s status, key dates, financials, tasks, and relevant documents, helping them to stay organized and informed throughout the legal process.
  
• Need for human validation
  These solutions typically require minimal manual work as they primarily deal with administrative tasks.
  Added value toward clients: Practice management solutions mainly impact low-value work by automating administrative tasks and freeing up lawyers to focus on higher-value legal work.
  
• Time-to-value
  The time savings from this type of solution is often immediate, with measurable benefits within weeks of implementation.
  
• The efficiency potential through AI
  is high, as it automates scheduling, billing, and client management, reducing administrative overhead and enabling legal professionals to focus on substantive legal work. Practice management tools can leverage AI for predictive analytics and resource allocation, further increasing operational efficiency.

2. Contract generation (simple contract drafting)

• Definition
  Contract generation solutions automate the creation of standard legal documents, ensuring consistency and reducing manual drafting time, which is invaluable for routine contracts. The output of contract generation software is typically a Word document or a PDF. Contract generation tools on the one hand, and solutions for complex revision and negotiation (which we’ll explain below) on the other hand, complement each other. The main difference between the two has to do with the length and complexity of contracts that legal teams face. Contract generation tools help with drafting simple, or standard, contracts that require little to no revision. Employment agreements, for example, are fairly straightforward. Drafting these can be easily automated using contract generation software. Once done, the result can be quickly exported for further use.

• Need for human validation
  Despite their efficiency, contract drafting solutions often require some degree of human intervention to ensure the accuracy of the contracts generated.
  
• Added value toward clients
  These solutions reduce low-value, repetitive drafting work, allowing legal professionals to concentrate on more strategic and complex legal tasks.
  
• Time-to-value
  Contract drafting solutions offer rapid time-to-value, with users able to generate contracts efficiently from templates once properly set up
  
• The efficiency potential through AI
  is significant, as it accelerates the creation of standard contracts, allowing legal teams to work faster and more consistently. AI can be integrated to suggest clauses, enhancing the efficiency of contract creation and ensuring compliance.

3. Contract Reviewing and Negotiation (including Contract Tailoring)

• Definition
  Advanced contract review and negotiation platforms employ leading technologies (including but not limited to AI) to analyze and customize complex contracts, optimizing terms, and language to align with specific legal requirements and client needs. Areas of expertise that can benefit greatly from these solutions include M&A, Corporate and Commercial, Real Estate, IP and Tech, and more.Contract reviewing and negotiation solutions become very helpful for legal teams dealing with complex matters that typically have a long lead time and require a lot of back and forth between multiple parties to finalize. That’s why these solutions typically start from a baseline: a template, an older contract of a similar deal, or a contract coming from a counterparty. Then, the true value of the software emerges, as it can surface existing clauses and definitions from a legal team’s database to add nuances and further tailor the contract – ultimately facilitating negotiations between parties.
  
• Need for human validation
  Complex contract review and negotiation solutions heavily rely on validation by the user, especially for nuanced legal issues, to ensure client expectations are met in the specific context of the subject matter being looked into (eg. when working on acquisition cases, each case is different from the other).
  
• Added value toward clients
  These complex tools augment high-value work by improving the accuracy and customization of contracts, reducing the risk of costly legal disputes. The software can save considerable time during the negotiation and tailoring phases.
  
• Time-to-value
  The time-to-value may vary depending on the complexity of the solution. While some solutions can be set up plug-and-play with a contract database, others require tedious manual setup and configuration.
  
• The efficiency potential through AI 
  According to Morae Global, contract drafting and review tools were among the first tools to integrate with LLMs. These solutions can greatly benefit from advanced technologies such as AI for clause analysis, risk assessment, and contract personalization, greatly increasing efficiency in tailoring contracts. It speeds up the contract reviewing and negotiation process by identifying potential areas of concern and providing suggestions for improvements.

4. Contract Proofreading

• Definition
  Contract proofreading tools are designed to help legal professionals with AI-driven grammar and legal language checks. The goal of this software is to make it easier to identify errors and inconsistencies in contracts, enhancing the accuracy and reliability of legal documents. It helps legal teams maintain the level of quality their clients expect while working faster.
  
  These tools can scan a document (eg. a Confidentiality Agreement) to flag inconsistent formatting, automatically locate undefined terms or terms that aren’t referenced, show referencing issues, and more. While some tools require you to enter the document you want reviewed to get a detailed report with suggestions for improvement, other tools can analyze open documents with the click of a button.
  
• Need for human validation
  By identifying common grammatical and legal errors, the need for extensive human review is drastically reduced by contract proofreading tools. Furthermore, the risk of contractual inconsistencies overlooked when relying solely on manual work by legal professionals can be greatly reduced.
  
• Added value toward clients
  Contract proofreading enhances the quality and accuracy of high-value work, minimizing errors and potential legal risks in important documents.
  
• Time-to-value
  The time-to-value is quick, as proofreading tools improve document quality immediately.
  
• The efficiency potential through AI
  is substantial. AI-driven contract proofreading can detect subtle legal issues and suggest improvements, significantly improving efficiency in the final review process.

5. Client Relationship Management

• Definition
  Legal Client Relationship Management (or CRM) software is the modern-day equivalent of a Rolodex on steroids. It provides a comprehensive overview of client relationships, matter details, communication history, task management, financials, and potential opportunities, allowing legal teams to proactively manage and enhance their interactions with clients. With the aggregate data that CRM software can store per client, everyone on a legal team can get an overview of each company or individual contact, which ultimately strengthens client relationships and improves customer service.Need for human validation: Legal CRM systems generally require minimal validation, but human input is crucial for building and maintaining client relationships.
  
• Added value toward clients
  By helping law firms nurture and retain valuable clients, client relationship management solutions optimize client interactions, primarily affecting high-value work.
  
• Time-to-value
  Implementing these solutions leads to enhanced client relationships in the mid to long term, with ongoing benefits as relationships strengthen.
  
• The efficiency potential through AI
  The efficiency potential lies in the system’s ability to streamline (or personalize) communications and centralize client data, facilitating better customer management. Elements such as automated data or task management, lead scoring, predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs, and more can all be influenced by AI.

6. Knowledge Management

• Definition
  Legal knowledge management solutions organize and centralize legal information, enabling firms to efficiently access and share critical precedents, documents, and best practices for improved decision-making.
  To shed light on the vital role of knowledge management, we sat down with Hanna Canning, Head of Legal Tech and Knowledge Management at DLA Piper in Sweden. Read the full interview here.
  
• Need for human validation
  Legal knowledge management solutions can benefit from verification to ensure the accuracy and relevance of the stored information.
  
• Added value toward clients
  Knowledge management enhances the output of high-value work by improving information access and knowledge sharing within a firm, benefiting strategic legal decision-making.
  
• Time-to-value
  The time-to-value can be extended, but long-term benefits include better knowledge utilization, informed legal strategies, and overall consistency across legal teams.
  
• The efficiency potential through AI
  is significant, as AI can help in indexing, searching, and organizing vast amounts of legal knowledge, making it accessible and actionable for legal professionals. AI-driven knowledge management tools can automatically categorize and retrieve legal knowledge, increasing efficiency in research and decision-making.

7. Legal Research

• Definition
  Legal research platforms use technology to search and analyze big legal databases, giving legal professionals quick access to case law, statutes, and legal precedents to support their work.
  
• Need for human validation
  Although legal research platforms can accelerate the initial search process, human checks remain essential to assess the applicability of found cases and precedents.
  
• Added value toward clients
  By accelerating the discovery of relevant legal information and precedents, legal research solutions primarily impact high-value work.
  
• Time-to-value
  Legal research platforms instantly save time and help lawyers quickly find valuable case law and statutes. More specifically (and technically), AI can assist in natural language processing and semantic search, making research more efficient and precise.
  
• The efficiency potential through AI
  is high, as AI can swiftly locate relevant legal sources, saving significant research time. Legal professionals could ask questions that are applied to a specific dataset. For example, ​“In Delaware, what are the common defenses available to a target company’s board of directors against a hostile takeover, and how do these defenses affect the acquisition process?” would generate a helpful answer based on precedent cases when working on a hostile takeover defense strategy.

8. Case Management

• Definition
  Case management software assists legal professionals in handling cases by organizing and tracking case-related information, deadlines, tasks, and documents, ultimately improving case efficiency and client service. It usually takes the form of an online platform that houses all the above information in one place. While some case management vendors have a CRM component, others focus more on client cases and workflows to track them.
  
• Need for human validation
  For critical decision-making aspects of legal cases, case management software needs human validation.
  
• Added value toward clients
  Case management solutions primarily impact high-value work by improving case tracking and organization, reducing the risk of missing critical deadlines.
  
• Time-to-value
  Time-to-value is relatively short, with benefits realized as soon as cases are efficiently managed, reducing the potential for costly errors.
  
• The efficiency potential through AI
  Advanced technology like AI enhances case management efficiency by automating administrative tasks, centralizing case information, and ensuring deadlines and tasks are met promptly.

In conclusion

The efficiency potential through AI can cover a lot of areas within legal practices. Whether you should invest in technology (with or without Artificial Intelligence) depends on how you’re looking to add value to clients. An important element to consider is that technology can be a way for you and your team to automate or reduce time spent on low-value work. By doing so, lawyers can spend more time doing what they excel at, share best practices, and cultivate a working environment that delivers the high-value work that clients dream of. With AI and technology as levers to enable the law firm of tomorrow, in the future, we expect a shift to a more dynamic way of managing knowledge, which we would call ​“Knowledge Enablement”. Knowledge will be found more efficiently and data-driven decisions will prevail.