‘If you’re a lawyer that sticks your head in the sand and refuses to engage with this technology, that’s going to lead to a short career path.’
As Simmons & Simmons TMT head Alexander Brown underlines, the rise of artificial intelligence and gen AI platforms such as ChatGPT has sent shockwaves through the legal profession – and despite all the old stereotypes of technophobic lawyers, most sensible legal professionals are aware this is not something they can afford to ignore.
‘The world is changing and anyone who doesn’t embrace this change risks being left behind,’ says Hogan Lovells partner Dr Sebastian Lach, the co-CEO of the firm’s legal tech brand ELTEMATE. This sentiment is echoed by Macfarlanes lawtech practice leader Christopher Tart-Roberts, who puts it plainly: ‘AI is shaping the firms of the future.’
Buy vs build
The breakneck rise to prominence of AI has left everyone scrambling to keep up and figure out if and how it can be incorporated into their day-to-day work.
One of the first questions for law firms weighing up what to do with AI is whether to buy or build. For those looking to buy, a popular choice so far has been Harvey, a gen AI legal platform that was launched in 2022 and is licensed by firms including A&O Shearman, Macfarlanes, Ashurst and CMS.
Harvey runs on OpenAI’s powerful language models including GPT-4 and, according to the OpenAI website, has been customised with 10 billion tokens worth of data to make it more suitable for legal work such as contract analysis, due diligence, litigation and regulatory compliance.
Microsoft Copilot, which also runs on OpenAI’s language model infrastructure, is another popular choice, and is used by firms including Clifford Chance and Simmons & Simmons to automate tasks such as email review and note-taking.
For those looking to build, a common approach has been to follow Harvey’s lead and customise existing gen AI language models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 to make them more suitable for legal work. Examples of firms who have developed their own AI chatbot tools in this way include Simmons (Percy), Osborne Clarke (OC-GPT) and Hogan Lovells (Eltemate Craig).
Although these bespoke models will vary, they are all able to assist lawyers with real-world legal tasks ranging from drafting emails to document review, due diligence and automating redactions.
The client side
While at some firms, AI-powered tech is currently only being deployed internally, others are developing systems as part of their client offering.
Macfarlanes has developed Amplify – a gen AI solution powered by Harvey that is tailored to clients’ needs such as contract screening and chat-style querying across documents and data sets. Hogan Lovells has its own legal tech brand, ELTEMATE, which combines third-party solutions with proprietary software and includes Craig and Regulatory Pilot – a customised AI tool that and automates the process of collecting, reviewing and processing regulatory updates.
Osborne Clarke, meanwhile, has put together an in-house client technology team, Osborne Clarke Solutions, which in addition to providing AI tools for internal use, develops bespoke legal tech platforms for clients such as case management platforms to manage the employee immigration process at OVO Energy.
Holy cow
The next question then is: are significant numbers of lawyers already effectively using AI and, if so, how?
On the first point, the answer appears to to be yes. At Macfarlanes, Tart-Roberts says that over 80% of its lawyers use Harvey regularly. At Hogan Lovells, Lach says that 1,900 out of 7,000 Hogan Lovells employees (almost 30%) use ELTEMATE – including 600 ‘power users’, while Simmons’ Brown says that Percy receives 4,500 to 5,000 individual prompts per day.
On the second point – how lawyers are using AI – Tart-Roberts points to the emergence of two distinct use cases for AI: ‘incremental savings on everyday tasks including drafting, summarisation, analysis, and interpretation’ and assisting with ‘more significant workstreams such as due diligence and documents.’
Lach, meanwhile, points to how AI can help clients navigate the increasingly complex regulatory landscape, highlighting how one of its ELTEMATE tools – Regulatory Pilot – helps to source and review an average of 10,000 regulatory documents per month for an international client. With a combination of AI (93%) and ELTEMATE staff (7%), those 10,000 documents that need reviewing can be reduced to around 50.
The use of AI agents is another area where AI is progressing. As Brown explains, these are essentially ‘autonomous bots trained to do very specific tasks or execute specific workflows’ citing the example of an AI agent that drafts, reviews and marks up non-disclosure agreements.
And all of this is just scratching the surface, with new use cases arising all the time – frequently from the lawyers who are actually using these AI tools.
As Osborne Clarke’s Dan Wright – who heads up the firm’s OC Solutions offering – puts it: ‘We can provide some ideas, but the far more valuable ideas come from those actually living and breathing the relevant work on a day-to-day basis.’
Lach makes a similar point about great ideas coming from lawyers using AI – as he puts it: ‘We’ve had a lot of “holy cow” moments.’
The billable hour
One key aspect of the lawyer-client relationship that could be impacted by the AI revolution is the billable hour. The logic for this is laid out by one partner, involved with AI implementation: ‘If you tell a client that you’ve started using something that makes you 60% more efficient, the obvious question is going to be: “Can I get my stuff done for 60% cheaper?’
While none of the partners canvassed for this article would go as far to say that the end of the billable hour is nigh, many forsee change coming rapidly over the horizon.
As Wright puts it: ‘The use of the billable hour is gradually being eroded in relation to a growing number of areas of work. A catalyst for the speed at which that erosion happens is the advent of technologies like large language models.’
Brown makes a similar point. ‘I think there will have to be value-based billing for some of these deliverables, because the reality is that there is a lot of upfront investments in this stuff, and an increasingly significant technology spend overhead.’
At Burness Paull, Mike Guthrie, who is on the firm’s transformation and innovation strategy group, asserts that as technology becomes more ubiquitous, changes may become easier to make. ‘At the point when gen AI becomes a standard tool in every law firm’s arsenal, I suspect you’re likely to get a scenario where people might be willing to value advice in a different way,’ he predicts.
Am I out of a job?
While almost everyone can agree that increased efficiency and the automation of mundane tasks are good things, the obvious next question is: are the robots coming for my job?
The answer for any lawyers considering brushing up on their woodworking skills thankfully appears to be no.
As Brown puts it: ‘I don’t feel scared by AI, and I think it’s really important that lawyers don’t feel scared by it. This isn’t the first time that we’ve had technology change in our profession or in the market.’
Gereon Abendroth, managing director of OC Solutions in Germany and chair of OC’s international’s AI management board is of a similar mind. ‘AI can come up with very good strategic decisions based on data, but it will always lack the human element and the trust that a personal relationship adds to decision-making’.
As an oft-repeated mantra in legal tech circles goes: ‘AI isn’t going to replace lawyers, but lawyers who use AI will, in time, replace lawyers who don’t use AI.’
The Legal Business AI Legal Summit 2025 will take place on 27 March, bringing together senior figures in the artificial intelligence sector to explore AI’s transformative impact on the legal and regulatory landscape. Click here to view the agenda.
Leading law firms and their use of AI: a non-comprehensive overview of what’s being used
DLA Piper
•Aiscension – Created in collaboration with eDiscovery experts Reveal, it scans millions of communications in minutes using neural network technology to enhance risk monitoring.*
• Microsoft – CoPilot enhancing legal workflow automation.
•Kira –AI-driven contract analysis platform. Identifies key provisions in large document collections quickly and accurately
•ButterflAI –An in-house developed generative AI-powered legal assistant designed to ensure security for client work.*
• RelativityOne – identifies and reviews relevant documents in large data sets
• PiperAI – a proprietary AI platform, developed to allow for rapid scaling of client solutions (based on Azure and OpenAI)*
*Developed in-house
A&O Shearman
• Harvey – A GPT-powered platform (recently valued at $3bn) leveraging natural language processing, machine learning, and data analytics to automate legal work such as contract analysis, due diligence, litigation, and regulatory compliance.
• ContractMatrix – A proprietary contract drafting tool developed in partnership with Microsoft and Harvey (built on Microsoft Azure’s OpenAI platform). It streamlines contract drafting, review, and analysis and is being licensed to clients.
• Avvoka – A legal tech platform that was part of Fuse, A&O Shearman’s technology incubator. It automates document processes across multiple European jurisdictions and played a key role in finalising the 2024 merger of Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling.
Clifford Chance
• Clifford Chance Assist – seveloped on Microsoft Azure’s OpenAI platform to enhance legal services.
• Microsoft 365 CoPilot & Viva Suite – automates a variety of daily tasks, including meeting and task management, drafting emails, inbox management, and providing access to continuous learning via Viva Insights and Viva Learning.
• Microsoft Teams Premium – provides live transcripts to assist in legal documentation and case tracking.
Hogan Lovells
• ELTEMATE CRAIG – A legally refined and customised suite of generative AI solutions. Developed by ELTEMATE, Hogan Lovells’ technology company, and used both client-facing as well as internally. Drafts legal documents, summarises content, allows chatting with large volumes of data, analyses and generates contracts, translates documents, automates redactions and much more. Recently added modules include:
• Chronology Generator – Automates the creation of a chronology of facts from a large set of data. Provides sources and includes a chat feature to query the timeline and all uploaded documents.
• Patent Litigation Module – Designed to streamline and enhance the workflow involved in challenging the validity of patents. Generates sophisticated novelty charts, assists in drafting challenges and condenses arguments presented by opponents and patentees.
• Investigations Cockpit – Analyses and summarises relevant content from internal investigations. Reviews emails for relevancy in the internal investigation and drafts interview outlines.
• Regulatory Pilot – A customized AI tool. Simplifies and automates the process of collecting, reviewing and processing regulatory updates. Greatly reduces the number of regulatory updates that require manual review. Part of the ELTEMATE portfolio.
Linklaters
• Chatbot: Laila – an alternative to ChatGPT, built on Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI platform, which gives staff access to GenAI functionality in a private and secure environment.
• Microsoft Copilot – the firm rolled out Microsoft 365’s Copilot globally following the success of its participation in their Early Adopters Programme
• Kira – an AI-driven contract analysis platform.
• NAIX – redaction automation
• RelativityOne – the firm’s default in-house eDiscovery platform
• StructureFlow – tools used to help develop complex organisation charts and diagrams
• ReportiQ – a Linklaters-developed tool (in collaboration with WizDocs): a next-generation online due-diligence platform, created to manage all aspects of the due-diligence processes.
• CreateiQ 2.0 – a Linklaters-developed contract management platform.
• Opus 2 Investigations – A secure cloud-based platform that consolidates key evidence in investigations into a single connected space.
Freshfields
• Freshfields Lab – an in-house hub for legal tech innovation and digital transformation.
Norton Rose Fulbright
• AI-assisted eDiscovery platform –used for litigation and compliance purposes.
• NRF Transform – a suite of client-focused legal tech solutions, including Horizon Scanner for regulatory tracking.
CMS
• Global Partnership with Harvey – enhancing AI-driven legal services.
• Kira – a leader in natural language processing for legal document review.
• Avail – real estate-focused document review and machine learning platform.
• Lexis+ AI – AI assistant supporting legal research, document drafting, and case analysis.
• Internal AI Chatbot – built on OpenAI technology for firm-wide legal assistance.
• Microsoft 365 CoPilot – Integrated for productivity and document management.
Eversheds Sutherland
• Microsoft 365 Copilot – enhancing legal workflow automation.
• Lexis+AI – AI assistant supporting legal research, document drafting, and case analysis.
Herbert Smith Freehills
• Microsoft 365 CoPilot – enhancing legal workflow automation.
• Luminance Corporate Pilot – AI-driven legal technology for corporate compliance and document review.
• CoCounsel Pilot – Built on GPT-4, assisting with legal research, document review, and correspondence drafting.
• Relativity aiR for Review – In early access trials for litigation and investigations, integrated with Microsoft Azure’s OpenAI services.
• hsf.AI – Version 2 of the firm’s private instance of ChatGPT, ensuring secure AI use within its IT environment.
