While GenAI can automate many tasks, it doesn’t necessarily mean reducing headcount. This is especially relevant for Midsize law firms, many of which already face leverage challenges. GenAI can allow such firms to reallocate their human resources to higher-value tasks like complex problem-solving, client relationships, and strategic work that AI cannot replicate.

With GenAI handling routine tasks more efficiently, firms often find they have increased capacity without increasing staff, leading to growth in revenue without a proportional increase in costs.

Will GenAI mean fewer staff?

Many Midsize firms are justifiably wary of further reducing staff. Some firms already face significant challenges attracting and retaining top talent in a competitive legal market, making the prospect of downsizing even less appealing. For them, GenAI represents a powerful tool to enhance both performance and job satisfaction by alleviating tedious tasks. The ability to focus on the more stimulating and rewarding aspects of their work, in turn, makes the firm more attractive to ambitious legal professionals. Indeed, the top two areas in which legal professionals wanted AI to influence were improved work-life balance and more time spent on engaging judgment-based or expertise-driven work, according to 成人VR视频 Future of Professionals Report.

Moreover, human oversight remains essential. While GenAI can draft documents and conduct research, legal professionals are still needed to review, refine, and ensure the quality of AI-generated work. As , an experienced litigation practice leader at McGivney, Kluger, Clark & Intoccia, aptly puts it: “Our legal professionals use AI tools to enhance our work product and save time and money for our clients, but we always verify the facts and law.”

Many clients now expect firms to use AI to improve efficiency. And law firms have discovered that meeting this demand doesn’t necessarily mean reducing staff but rather enhancing current staff鈥檚 capabilities. In fact, corporate general counsel have expressed a desire to evolve their departments into value centers and become strategic leaders, according to the by the 成人VR视频 Institute. This desire for efficiency and strategic operation isn’t limited to in-house legal teams, the report shows, it also extends to GCs鈥� expectations of their law firm partners as well. Clients increasingly want to see the same commitment to leveraging technology for efficiency and cost-effectiveness that they seek on their in-house team reflected in the actions of their outside counsel.

Enhancing existing capabilities

Leveraging GenAI effectively starts with integrating the technology into current workflows 鈥� training teams to use AI-powered tools for tasks like document review, due diligence, and contract analysis, or to speed up case preparation. McGivney Kluger鈥檚 Raymond, a self-described optimist when it comes to AI in law, says that if law firm leaders 鈥済et this right, this is a growth opportunity,鈥� adding that clients are becoming increasingly aware of the potential of AI. “As sure as death and taxes, they will not pay for manual review of 5,000 pages of medical records” the same as they did before this technology was available, he notes.

Enhancing the team’s capabilities with GenAI also better positions those Midsize firms that are looking to capture a larger market share and deliver superior service by targeting clients that might have historically been out of reach due to concerns about scale. This ability to punch above your weight is a key advantage for Midsize firms aiming to secure higher-value and more prestigious work that had been traditionally dominated by larger competitors.

Special Report Perceptions, usage, and impact of GenAI on the future of work   View full report

For example, Raymond describes his firm鈥檚 integration of vetted, secure, and closed-system AI tools which ensure data privacy and accuracy into its workflows, which allowed the firm to demonstrate to client its commitment to providing both exceptional results and cost-effectiveness.

This efficiency gain is evident across various practice areas. For example, in litigation, tasks like deposition review and summarization or complex medical records review, which previously demanded hours of lawyer time, can now be achieved up to 80% faster with GenAI, allowing for significant cost savings and freeing lawyers to focus on strategic case development, which translates into more billable hours that are less likely to fall victim to a write-down. Further, transactional attorneys and paralegals experience similar benefits. Instead of painstaking manual contract reviews, these tools can quickly analyze contracts for specific clauses, identify potential risks, and even compare documents against precedent or regulatory requirements 鈥� all completed in minutes, leading to quicker turnaround times for clients and more efficient use of billable hours.

Other ways GenAI can help Midsize law firms

There are a few additional considerations for Midsize law firms that are looking to position themselves for an AI future, including:

Developing new service offerings 鈥� GenAI opens doors to innovative services that were previously impractical or impossible. For example, some firms are offering AI-powered legal health check-ups for businesses, rapid regulatory compliance reviews, or predictive legal risk assessments. Firms might also develop automated contract management and alerting systems. These new services can create additional revenue streams without significantly increasing costs, positioning the firm as an innovative leader in the legal market.

Investing in human skills 鈥� Midsize law firm leaders shouldn鈥檛 lose sight of the uniquely human elements of their legal practice. Instead, they should invest in developing critical thinking and strategic planning skills among their team. By focusing on enhancing emotional intelligence and client relationship management abilities and nurturing the capacity to provide nuanced legal judgments and make ethical decisions in the context of AI use, leaders can better prepare their teams for an AI-driven landscape.

Aligning with client expectations 鈥� By proactively adopting GenAI, firms are not just cutting costs, they鈥檙e meeting and exceeding client expectations. According to the 成人VR视频 Institute鈥檚 2024 Generative AI in Professional Services听谤别辫辞谤迟, a significant portion of various corporate departments expressed that their external partners should be utilizing GenAI. Specifically, 58% of corporate legal departments and 56% of corporate tax departments held this view. Additionally, 44% of court systems and 40% of government legal departments also indicated that the outside firms they collaborate with ought to be implementing GenAI in their practices.

Communicating value 鈥� Transparency is key when implementing GenAI. Firm leaders need to clearly communicate to clients how GenAI is being used to improve service delivery and reduce costs. Educate them on AI adoption processes and its benefits and be open about addressing any concerns regarding data security and ethical AI use. This openness builds trust and positions the firm as an innovative leader in the legal industry. Raymond characterizes this as an opportunity to define the client firm relationship and establish guidelines together on billing and workflow efficiency optimization.

Offering continuous learning and optimization

The 成人VR视频 says that to deliver unparalleled client outcomes, law firms must proactively harness the transformative potential of GenAI for enhanced efficiency and cost-effectiveness. As such, firms should regularly assess and update AI tools and processes and stay informed about legal and ethical considerations of AI use in law. Leaders should encourage innovation and experimentation among staff; and to ensure GenAI integration is empowering a profit center, they should establish clear metrics for AI implementation. They should also regularly review and analyze the impact of AI on their firms鈥� profitability, gathering feedback from both staff and clients to continually refine firms鈥� approaches. And remember, be prepared to pivot your strategy based on results and emerging technologies.

Conclusion

The future of law isn’t about replacing humans with AI 鈥� it’s about creating a synergy between skilled legal professionals and cutting-edge technology. By strategically implementing GenAI, Midsize law firms can transform themselves into highly efficient, profitable teams that are ready to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s legal landscape.

Remember, the goal isn’t just cost-saving 鈥� it’s about positioning the firm for success in an increasingly AI-enhanced world while ensuring employee development and satisfaction. With the right approach, GenAI can help better serve clients, open new areas of service, and drive profitability in ways that, before now, weren鈥檛 always possible. As the legal industry navigates this transformative period, it’s clear that the firms that embrace this change proactively and with optimism will be better positioned to win.

You can find more about the challenges facing Midsize law firms here

Let鈥檚 start with what it 诲辞别蝉苍鈥檛 need to do: It 诲辞别蝉苍鈥檛 need to hire data scientists or turn its lawyers into AI experts. For smaller law firms, as for most firms across the spectrum, Gen AI technologies will increasingly be embedded in the products they use. If a firm deploys those products effectively, it is deploying AI.

Like any implementation of new tools and technology, however, this does require some measure of strategy and forethought. Even the smallest of firms needs a time-bound strategic plan executed with testing and learning across the firm.

Part of that strategic planning process will include identifying pain points and challenges in the current way of doing things. One area that may be low-hanging fruit for many smaller firms is in marketing and business development 鈥� simple blog posts and website creation can be facilitated more easily with Gen AI, for example 鈥� as well as other areas where non-legal administrative work takes too much time and resources.

Our recent study, Chat GPT & Generative AI within Law Firms, provides a road map. In general, the survey found that while law firm lawyers are generally open to using Gen AI in their work, there is considerable skepticism about leveraging AI in core legal work.

However, respondents felt slightly better about using Gen AI tools, such as the public-facing ChatGPT, for non-legal work within a law firm, such as basic question-and-answer services or other administrative tasks. Almost three-fourths (72%) of respondents said they felt that Gen AI should be applied to non-legal work within a firm 鈥� a much higher percentage than those who said they felt it should be applied to legal work within the firm, 21 percentage points higher, in fact.

If a small law firm is looking for places to get started with Gen AI, there are some examples in which a strategic approach can bring quick, yet real transformation to both the business and practice of law within the firm.

Turning administrative tasks into strategic advantage

Efficient deployment of software to enhance the administrative side of running a law firm can shift the discussion from efficiency to strategic advantage. Gen AI-based tools can turn back-office tasks into vehicles for additional strategic insight, better client relations, and, ultimately, higher revenues.

Some key first steps that firm leaders could take include:

• • • Review goals, processes, and tools for client communications 鈥� Are the firm鈥檚 teams able to produce timely, accurate, and engaging client communications? Could its lawyers sometimes be better communicators? Gen AI will significantly impact the time and effort required to generate first drafts of communications. Think of this as an opportunity to revisit the firm鈥檚 goals and strategies for better client communications and to leverage the expertise of its professionals that is currently locked away in internal documents and work product.
    • Find new ways to provide more responsive client service 鈥� Gen AI is behind many products (such as chatbots) which offer organizations new ways to provide speedy responses to clients about their matters and billing and take some of the friction out of routine client inquiries.
    • Assess markets and identify business opportunities 鈥� AI also has become essential for transactional lawyers by enabling them to assess prevailing market terms while advising clients. Those same techniques can be used to understand broader market trends and identify market opportunities by tracking the direction in which the market is moving.

Accelerating and enhancing the quality of legal work

As lawyers build familiarity with Gen AI through its application to administrative tasks, and as the tools continue to evolve, the stage will be set for the application of Gen AI beyond the business of law and into the practice of law. Indeed, Gen AI has the potential to transform the substantive legal work at the heart of a law firm鈥檚 value to clients, with a wide range of potential applications and advantages, including:

• • • Legal research: Keep up with the dramatic improvements that Gen AI is bringing to legal research tools 鈥� AI has been embedded in legal research tools for years, but a new generation of AI capabilities will dramatically alter the research experience for lawyers. Central to those changes is the ability to ask questions in conversational dialogue with research services and arrive at synthesized answers rather than just lists of relevant documents. Staying on top of the latest features of legal research platforms will provide a strategic advantage for small law firms against competitors of all sizes, allowing solo and smaller firms to meaningfully level the playing field.
    • Drafting: Integrate Gen AI tools across the drafting process and leverage a firm鈥檚 work product 鈥� Gen AI systems can enhance the process of drafting, but they also provide an opportunity to increase the value of a firm鈥檚 own standards and precedents. AI-based drafting tools can automatically pull preferred document language from external content sources or a firm鈥檚 proprietary documents.
    • Document review: Make AI part of a firm鈥檚 document review processes 鈥� AI has proven to be an effective way to support lawyers with first-pass analysis of documents such as contracts or leases. Gen AI features will make those processes more like conversational dialogue with the documents and will spare lawyers from the more routine parts of the job to instead free their time to focus on analysis and client consultations.
    • Unleash better service and productivity: Leverage integrations among these tools to achieve better quality of service and productivity 鈥� Gen AI will weave together the research, knowledge management, and drafting processes that are now separate processes that require lawyers to shift in and out of different tools. Firms can benefit by examining and re-working their internal workflows to take advantage of those shifts and by changing processes or changing who does what work.

Moving boldly toward an AI future

There is no reason for small law firms to be intimidated by AI. None of these innovations are out of the reach of the typical small firm, and these firms often have the advantage of being able to redeploy resources and change direction more quickly than their larger counterparts. Being nimble requires discipline, however, and all law firms need to take a strategic approach.

As we discussed earlier in this series, AI has already made many important impacts in how lawyers do their work. Gen AI will add important components to the mix, not the least of which is added capacity for lawyers and the potential to increase the appearance of professionalism in the eyes of clients. This new generation of Gen AI tools will draw upon data, technology, and expertise to produce quality results, and lawyers in small law firms are just as well positioned as their larger law firm counterparts to add their own unique domain expertise to that equation.

Larger law firms that are experimenting with Gen AI have spoken often about how their first forays into this new world of AI tech will focus on internal tasks, looking to experiment and iterate out of view of the client, while seeking to develop levels of expertise that can then be leveraged to the client鈥檚 advantage. Small law firms can undertake the exact same process, and in fact, may even beat their larger competitors to meaningful results thanks to their agility and already simpler processes.

No one knows for sure what the future of Gen AI will look like. However, for small law firm leaders who are willing to take bold but intelligent steps, a bright future may come into focus quickly.

This is the third in聽a series of blog posts聽about how small law firms can address the opportunities and pitfalls brought by generative artificial intelligence.

Further, artificial intelligence itself 诲辞别蝉苍鈥檛 replace lawyers鈥� expertise. Rather, it provides a platform for lawyers to leverage and extend their domain knowledge, enabling them to bring higher levels of productivity and service to the benefit of their clients and firm alike.

In short, Gen AI presents unprecedented opportunities for small law firms to compete.

Human expertise is critical to the success of AI

It鈥檚 common to hear concerns that Gen AI and other technologies will cost lawyers jobs or diminish the value of their work. While AI might entail a shift of some specific tasks from humans to machines, in reality, the idea that AI will diminish the contributions of human lawyers could not be further from the truth. Indeed, the opposite is true: Gen AI requires legal domain expertise and skills to function correctly.

AI is not just a technology but a fusion of three essential resources: i) relevant data sets; ii) technology tailored for specific applications; and iii) the human expertise guiding its practical use and informing training and error analysis.

AI won鈥檛 work in a specialized domain like the legal system unless all three of these components are present 鈥� none of them alone is more important than the other two.

In a highly specialized domain like legal, extensive sets of accurate and updated data such as statutes, regulations, and case laws are necessary to train the machine-learning algorithms of the technology. Moreover, without lawyer-generated data such as contracts, memoranda, and prior work product, reliable outcomes from AI tools would be unattainable.

AI technology combines data with the tools built by expert developers who combine analytical and problem-solving skills with a solid understanding of the target domains.

In the final component, legal experts guide AI training, verify algorithm performance, and are central to error rectification. They bridge the gap between tech professionals and domain-specific applications. Only lawyers think like lawyers, and their perspective is crucial to ensuring AI works correctly within the legal practice.

What happens when one part is missing?

鈥淕arbage in, garbage out鈥� is certainly one of the most time-tested rules regarding data and technology, and it鈥檚 certainly having a moment amid popular early impressions of Gen AI鈥檚 capabilities.

The widespread availability of early forms of the public-facing Gen AI tool, ChatGPT, was useful because anyone could test it out, which encouraged experimentation and drove initial innovation. Lawyers testing ChatGPT soon found that it could create legal documents that sounded very authoritative; however, they also found out that reliance on them could have real consequences.

The openly available versions of Gen AI are really just sentence-completion engines trained on an unfiltered base of data from the internet. ChatGPT has no intelligence of its own; rather, it鈥檚 good at drafting language that sounds like a plausible response to a user鈥檚 prompt.

Because of the lack of native intelligence, ChatGPT may sound like a lawyer, but it 诲辞别蝉苍鈥檛 deliver the accuracy and precision that lawyers require. It can, and has, cited non-existent sources and invented facts. These examples are called hallucinations and聽include the submitted a brief supporting a motion that included citations of non-existent cases and other legal inaccuracies 鈥� but it sounded good. He had simply asked ChatGPT to write his brief, with disastrous results.

ChatGPT 诲辞别蝉苍鈥檛 have the data training nor domain expertise to be reliable. As a result, it can very easily introduce errors into its responses. It simply 诲辞别蝉苍鈥檛 know better.

The possibility of such errors presents an unacceptable level of risk for legal professionals. So how will lawyers, especially those at smaller firms, effectively use Gen AI while maintaining all their client and ethical obligations?

Authoritative legal data is the backbone of Gen AI

Beyond just selecting the words for a response, technology also provides part of the answer for how lawyers can effectively use Gen AI. Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) is one method designed to improve the response quality in Gen AI systems. In products that use RAG, the user鈥檚 prompts or queries do not pass directly through to the underlying Large Language Model (LLM). First, the question runs as a search against a trusted body of content 鈥� for example, verified legal content from a legal publisher or trusted documents from the user鈥檚 organization.

Documents relevant to the question are retrieved first, and the question and the verified content are passed on to the LLM for processing. This ensures that the answers to users’ queries are grounded in trusted domain-specific data, not just a random sample of data (however large) from the wider internet.

Gen AI presents unprecedented opportunities for small law firms to compete.

The idea that legal Gen AI means turning over legal decision-making to a machine overlooks the importance of the data portion of the Venn diagram above. A properly trained and targeted Gen AI application for legal use will build on the work of lawyers in the form of cases, statutes, briefs and memoranda, how-to guides, contracts, client advisories, templates 鈥� all the esoteric and robust data that results from lawyers’ expertise and knowledge.

All law firms, even smaller ones, have an opportunity to leverage their own data assets against competitors at scale once their lawyers identify and curate the appropriate critical data sets from within their firm and embed them within the AI solution. This proprietary data can be combined with larger pools of data from authoritative external sources like trusted legal content sources to further strengthen the responses that the Gen AI tool provides.

Legal domain expertise is vital for success

Lawyers provide a layer of trust between clients and the systems that generate their various legal deliverables. Clients rely on lawyers鈥� domain expertise to ensure the right tools are used for their legal matters, with the best results. After all, clients hire lawyers because they want trusted experts representing them.

The recent 成人VR视频 Future of Professionals Report surveyed lawyers and accounting professionals about their concerns and expectations around the role of AI in their work. One of the report鈥檚 primary conclusions was: “As an industry, the biggest investment we will make is trust.鈥� Trust is the legal advisor鈥檚 stock in trade; tools and technology can enhance productivity and generate new types of service offerings, but in the end, it鈥檚 the legal expertise of human lawyers that creates value upon which clients rely.

That layer of trust has several dimensions, including:

• • • Accuracy 鈥� Is the machine producing the correct result? Does the lawyer understand how the machine works and knows how to evaluate its accuracy?
    • Ethics 鈥� Is the lawyer accountable for the work product? Is the lawyer fully representing the client’s interests and using the best tools for the job?
    • Security & confidentiality 鈥� Is the lawyer protecting client data?
    • Value 鈥� Is the lawyer using sound judgment in choosing where automation creates value and where direct human interaction is more valuable?

Ultimately, the value that clients see in their outside firms鈥� legal work is not determined by the underlying tools; it鈥檚 found in the client鈥檚 confidence in lawyers鈥� expertise in matching the right tool and methodology to the legal task, and lawyers鈥� accountability for the result.

By leveraging strong proprietary data sets, access to the same technology and industry data as larger firms, and deep domain expertise, coupled with the inherent trust that small law firms can build with their high-touch client relationships, small law firms can use Gen AI to gain access to scale and competitive abilities unheard of before in the legal industry.

This is the second in a series of blog posts about how small law firms can address the opportunities and pitfalls brought by generative artificial intelligence.

I know this because I have seen first-hand how law firms have adopted earlier generations of artificial intelligence into their practices. From the first generations of natural language processing that were built into legal research products decades ago, to more advanced applications for AI in products used for large-scale document reviews, law firms have effectively adapted to new forms of AI when they are embedded in the many products that lawyers use every day.

By strategically implementing early-generation AI technologies, small law firms have achieved greater efficiencies, improved client services, and tapped into analytics and automation, all of which were once the exclusive domain of larger firms. And smaller firms can often pivot to these new capabilities much faster than their inertia-bound large law brethren.

How AI has already boosted the performance of small law firms

Artificial intelligence has already transformed the way small law firms do their work in ways many don鈥檛 even realize, especially in areas such as:

Research and document review 鈥� AI has been leveraged in legal research and document review for years. Now, a newer generation of research and analysis tools is taking on more of the workflow around these tasks. Traditional time-consuming and labor-intensive research and review work can now be executed in a fraction of the time. Small law firms with limited staffing can leverage these capabilities to take on more cases without compromising the quality of their work, increasing their profitability and competitiveness. Further, this allows smaller firms to take on more client work if they choose to augment billings.

Case analytics 鈥� AI-powered data analytics is another area where small firms can level the playing field and go toe-to-toe with large firms. Advanced machine learning algorithms can sift through vast amounts of data to uncover patterns, assess legal precedents, and even predict the likely outcomes of cases. Such analytics were once the purview of large firms that could afford dedicated resources. Now, smaller practices can access similar insights through SaaS (software-as-a-service) platforms at a fraction of the cost. This enables more informed strategic planning and resource allocation, and it can also serve as a powerful tool for client engagement, as firms can offer more precise, data-backed advice 鈥� all topics I鈥檝e written about for years.

Client services 鈥� Chatbots and AI-driven customer relationship management (CRM) systems can significantly enhance the client experience as well. These tools can handle initial client queries, schedule appointments, and send reminders, offering a level of responsiveness that was previously only possible for large firms with dedicated support staff. Such technologies create an impression of high-quality, attentive service, making small firms more appealing to potential clients. They minimize lawyers鈥� administrative burden, freeing them up to spend more time on the practice of law. Additionally, utilizing AI in this way will measurably increase the satisfaction of current clients through these service and support enhancements.

Marketing 鈥� AI can be a boon for the marketing strategies of small law firms by analyzing market trends, customer behavior, and even the efficacy of previous marketing campaigns. This data can be used to tailor more effective, targeted advertising strategies, enabling small firms to reach their desired audience with a precision that was once only achievable by large firms with extensive marketing budgets. Content for marketing campaigns can be generated and tested with limited effort and expense. And all of this will strengthen the conversion of prospect to client, thus addressing the all-too-important business development need for small law firms.

What generative AI will add to the mix

Generative AI capabilities go well beyond the changes that AI has already brought to legal work, in a number of ways, such as:

• • • It can engage in a dialog with lawyers by providing answers to lawyers鈥� question prompts, but in a dynamic way, allowing lawyers to modify, narrow, or broaden a question as needed. Working with generative AI is more like working with a trusted colleague 鈥� it serves up helpful results quickly, so you can get to the next step of applying legal expertise and validation even sooner.
    • Gen AI can identify insights from authoritative legal content 鈥� either a firm鈥檚 own data or content provided by trusted publishers or other sources.
    • It assists with drafting documents, speeding the process toward a client-ready work product while drawing on authoritative data sources.
    • Gen AI also can mine a firms鈥� own data on legal matters, billing, and other areas to more quickly synthesize data and highlight key trends within seconds.

Generative AI also enhances professionalism in the eyes of clients

Lawyer-driven tasks such as those mentioned above are all areas in which the skills and experience of a legal professional are essential. They also include some related tasks that consist of more tedious and lower-skilled work.

Analysis, advice, listening, and negotiating 鈥� these are the situations in which the personal services that small-firm lawyers provide add the most value. Scheduling, assembling spreadsheets, drafting routine memos, document review, and the many other manual tasks that lawyers do? Not so much.

Many lawyers already understand the benefits and competitive advantages of leveraging generative AI in client service. In 成人VR视频鈥� recent Future of Professionals report, legal professionals identified many applications for AI, including speeding up drafting and editing client communications, assisting clients with updates on changing regulations and legislation, and improving the readability of the documents they share with clients. The study also identified research and document review as tasks in which efficiency and improved response times will benefit clients.

However, the survey identified a larger and more strategic benefit that should be of particular interest to small firm lawyers. Most professionals believe AI will result in greater appreciation of their higher-level professional skills.

And this is key, because one of the reasons many lawyers and clients choose small law firms is the opportunity to work in consultative and trusting client-advisor relationships. AI is likely to have its most significant impact on lawyer tasks that are largely hidden from clients, and streamlining those tasks creates an opportunity to enhance long-term relationships with clients and allow lawyers to focus on those human engagements that clients value.

The competitive opportunity for small firms

Leveraging generative AI will not require small firm lawyers to suddenly become data scientists or invest heavily in developers or computing power. Increasingly, powerful generative AI capabilities are embedded in the types of products that lawyers at small firms are already using. Success will come from seeing those products’ capabilities enhance and transform the way legal work is delivered.

AI technology can become a disruptive force that may significantly mitigate resource disparities between small and large law firms, leveling the playing field for small, agile firms to outmaneuver their larger competitors by embracing innovation more swiftly. In an industry often seen as traditional and resistant to change, those small law firms that leverage AI effectively will thrive in the future competitive landscape and demonstrate the real innovative spirit clients are looking for.

This is the first in a series of blog posts about how small law firms can address the opportunities and pitfalls brought by generative artificial intelligence.