Summary
- Legal AI can save time by speeding up research, drafting and document review.
- It can improve efficiency and consistency across routine legal work.
- But AI can make mistakes, including inventing cases or legal information.
- Confidentiality and data protection are key risks when using AI tools.
- Human judgement is still essential as AI should support lawyers, not replace them.
- The safest approach is controlled use, with clear policies, checks and staff training.
Introduction
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already changing the way legal work is carried out. From legal research and contract review to drafting and document analysis, AI tools are becoming part of everyday practice.
Used well, AI can save time, reduce repetitive work and allow lawyers to focus on higher-value tasks. But it also brings real risks, including inaccurate information, confidentiality breaches, bias and overreliance on automated outputs.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) reports that three quarters of the largest solicitors’ firms are already using AI, with many more exploring generative AI tools.
The key question is no longer whether AI has a role in legal work, but how and where it should be used. AI is most effective when treated as a professional tool that supports, rather than replaces, legal judgement. Used responsibly, it can improve efficiency and consistency; used carelessly, it can create significant legal, regulatory and reputational risks.
What Is Legal AI?
“Legal AI” is not one particular type of software, it refers broadly to any artificial intelligence system that supports or executes legal tasks.
Examples include tools that can:
- research legislation, cases and legal commentary;
- review and compare contracts;
- identify unusual or high-risk clauses;
- summarise documents, correspondence and meeting notes;
- classify documents during disclosure or due diligence;
- generate first drafts of letters, reports and agreements;
- extract key dates, obligations and defined terms;
- assist with client onboarding and administrative work; and
- provide chat-based responses to basic legal questions.
The distinction between assistance and advice is important. A tool may organise information or suggest wording, but it does not assume responsibility for whether the result is correct, current or suitable.
The Advantages of Legal AI
1. Faster Handling of Routine Work
The most immediate benefit is speed. AI can review, classify and summarise large quantities of text faster than a person carrying out the same initial exercise manually.
This does not remove the need for legal review, but it can reduce the time spent organising material before substantive analysis begins.
The SRA has recognised that AI can increase speed and capacity, particularly by automating routine administrative and document-related work. This can free lawyers to concentrate on more complex and judgement-intensive tasks.
2. Greater Capacity and Potentially Lower Cost
By automating repetitive stages, AI can increase the amount a legal team can handle and may reduce the cost of some work. Any saving must be balanced against licence fees, implementation, security checks, training and quality control.
The strongest business case is not simply that a machine is quicker. It is that lawyers can redirect time towards negotiation, strategy and understanding the client’s commercial objectives.
3. More Consistent Processes
AI can help organisations apply standard criteria across many documents. A contract-review tool might assess agreements against an approved playbook and flag wording that departs from the organisation’s usual position.
This can improve consistency and help less experienced team members identify issues requiring escalation. However, a clause that is unacceptable in one transaction may be reasonable in another, so the system must support contextual judgement rather than replace it.
4. Better Access to Legal Information
Members of the public increasingly use generative AI to organise their thoughts, understand unfamiliar terminology and prepare questions before approaching a solicitor.
AI can explain terminology, organise questions and help a business prepare before speaking to a solicitor. This may make legal information easier to navigate and meetings more productive.
The danger is that a clear answer may be mistaken for reliable legal advice. Accessibility is valuable only when users understand the limits of the output.
The Disadvantages and Risks of Legal AI
1. The Risk of Hallucinations, inaccurate or Invented Information
An AI hallucination occurs when an AI system produces false or misleading information and presents it as fact. In legal work, this may take the form of a non-existent case, fabricated statutory wording, an inaccurate quotation or an authority that does not support the proposition for which it is cited.
The risk has already arisen before the English courts. In Ayinde v London Borough of Haringey; Al-Haroun v Qatar National Bank [2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin). The solicitor relied on legal research undertaken by his client without independently checking the authorities. The client said that the citations had been generated using publicly available AI tools, legal search engines and online sources. The court stressed that lawyers must check AI-assisted research against authoritative sources and remain professionally responsible for the accuracy of material placed before the court.
A further example arose in Anthony Malcolm Cork and another v Mark Smith [2026] EWHC 1199 (Ch). A junior solicitor at a law firm used AI while preparing letters to the court concerning an insolvency block-transfer application. The first letter presented invented wording as the text of Insolvency Rule 12.37(5).
The rule itself exists, but it does not contain the wording quoted in the letter. After the court identified the error and requested an explanation, a second AI-assisted letter gave a further misleading account of how the wording had been produced. The judge found that the court had been misled twice and expressed serious concerns about the failure to check the material against primary sources. The published judgment served as a public admonishment of the firm and the supervising solicitors.
Asking the same tool to confirm its own answer is not verification. Important propositions should be checked against original legislation, judgments, official guidance or reliable legal databases.
2. Confidentiality, Privilege and Security
Legal work often involves confidential information, personal data and privileged communications. Entering that material into an unsuitable AI service may allow it to be retained, transferred or reused in unintended ways.
A public chatbot should not be assumed to be a confidential workspace. An organisation should understand where data is hosted, who can access it, whether prompts are used for training, how long information is retained and whether it can be deleted.
The SRA expects appropriate governance and due diligence, including controls protecting client confidentiality and secure client information.
3. Data Protection Risks When Using Legal AI
Where an AI tool processes personal data, UK data protection law applies. Organisations must consider lawful basis, fairness, transparency, accuracy, security, data minimisation, retention and individual rights.
A data protection impact assessment may be required where a use is likely to create a high risk to individuals. Particular care is needed when AI contributes to recruitment, monitoring, profiling or decisions affecting people. The ICO’s guidance emphasises accountability, fairness and transparency in AI systems.
4. Bias and Limited Explainability
AI may reproduce bias in its training data or introduced through the way a system is designed and used. This is especially concerning when a tool evaluates people or recommends decisions.
Human review provides little protection where the reviewer automatically accepts the result or cannot explain its basis. Organisations should test systems, monitor outcomes and ensure that a qualified person can challenge their conclusions.
5. Intellectual Property and Contractual Uncertainty in Legal AI products
AI can raise questions about ownership and permitted use of inputs and outputs. A user may upload third-party material without permission, while generated content may reproduce protected material or fail to provide the exclusivity expected.
Supplier terms may also reserve broad rights to customer data or outputs. Businesses should review training rights, confidentiality, ownership, infringement claims, warranties and liability before the tool becomes embedded in an important workflow.
6. Overreliance and Loss of Judgement when using Legal AI
AI can make weak work look polished. Users may trust an output because it is fluent and confident rather than because it has been properly tested.
Junior lawyers develop judgement by researching, drafting, receiving feedback and understanding why an answer is right or wrong. If AI removes too much of that process, an organisation may gain efficiency while weakening future capability.
The answer is not to reject AI, but to preserve active thinking, supervision and accountability.
How to Use Legal AI Responsibly
A responsible approach begins with a defined problem, not a fashionable product. Organisations should identify the task, the information involved, the consequences of error and the human review required.
They should then conduct supplier due diligence and test the tool using realistic examples. The SRA recommends needs assessment, leadership oversight, risk and impact assessments, policies, training and ongoing monitoring.
An AI policy should identify approved systems, prohibited information, permitted uses and mandatory checks. Staff should understand that confidential or personal data must not be entered into unapproved tools and that material legal outputs require independent verification.
Lower-risk uses can be piloted first. Performance should be reviewed before the system is used for higher-risk work.
Responsibility must remain with an identifiable person who understands the matter, assesses the output in context and can defend the final decision.
Can AI Replace a Lawyer?
AI can be a capable assistant, but it does not provide the complete service delivered by a lawyer. It does not owe professional duties, carry professional indemnity insurance or accept responsibility when advice causes loss.
Legal problems involve choices. The best course may depend on commercial priorities, bargaining power, relationships, evidence, enforcement costs and appetite for risk. Those factors require informed judgement rather than plausible text.
AI may help users prepare questions and lawyers work efficiently. Where the consequences matter, its output should be reviewed by a suitably qualified professional.
Conclusion
Legal AI is already part of modern working life. Its advantages include speed, capacity, consistency and freedom from repetitive tasks. Its disadvantages include false information, confidentiality failures, data protection breaches, bias, intellectual property disputes and overreliance.
The sensible approach is neither blind enthusiasm nor blanket refusal. AI should be selected deliberately, introduced with clear controls and used for tasks matching its capabilities. The result depends not only on the technology, but on the person who frames the task, checks the answer and applies professional judgement.
EM Law advises businesses on AI procurement, contracts, data protection, intellectual property, confidentiality, liability and acceptable-use policies. Please contact us if you require advice on adopting or supplying AI tools.
