Large legal practices are turning to AI productivity gain for lawyers as a way to cut costs and speed up routine work.
Speed alone doesn’t equal efficiency
According to a recent survey, four‑fifths of attorneys in big firms rely on AI for research, while about two‑thirds use it for knowledge management, large‑scale document review, analysis and drafting. Yet only 30% say the technology is woven into their team’s strategy.
That gap shows many lawyers are experimenting faster than their organizations are redesigning workflows. A tool that spits out a draft in seconds can still demand more time for verification, which erodes any perceived advantage.
“Very few firms have rewired their underlying processes, feedback loops, and expectations to drive consistency of usage. Until that happens, the gains from AI will stay trapped with individuals rather than compounding across the firm,” says Alex Bazin, COO & CTO at Lewis Silkin.
In practice, the real measure is the time it takes to reach a safe answer—when a lawyer can stand behind the work without second‑guessing the source.
For example, a research summary that cites unclear origins forces the attorney to retrace steps, negating the speed benefit. Similarly, a document‑review engine that cannot explain its findings adds a layer of audit work.
When AI is embedded in a process that already includes checks, the net effort drops. When it sits on the side, the extra verification can outweigh any time saved.
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One way to think about this is to evaluate whether the tool reduces total effort or merely shifts work to a different stage.
Embedding tools into everyday workflows
Lawyers often have to copy text into a separate AI interface, interpret a response, then paste the result back into their case files. That back‑and‑forth creates friction and slows adoption.
When the technology connects directly to approved sources, secure document repositories and matter‑specific workflows, it becomes part of the routine rather than a side project.
Oliver Bethell, CTO at Travers Smith, explains, “A lot of what we do as a firm is bespoke and complex, and doesn’t lend itself to automating end‑to‑end.”
In the middle of these discussions, it’s worth noting that technology adoption in law mirrors other professional fields: tools that merely accelerate a single step rarely transform overall productivity unless they are tied to a broader process redesign.
The real payoff appears when firms treat AI as a component of a larger workflow, ensuring that each output can be quickly verified and integrated.