AI's fundamental impact on the legal profession is already transforming practice in concrete, measurable ways, allowing firms to shift focus from tedious administrative tasks to higher-value billable work.
- AI significantly increases work quality and accuracy (65% and 58% of professionals agree, respectively) by enabling more comprehensive analysis and research.
- Law firms are realizing improved profitability and revenue growth, with 69% of those using AI more widely reporting increased income.
- Automating routine work leads to substantial time savings and reduced write-downs, directly contributing to better firm economics.
- Beyond productivity, AI improves work-life balance and reduces stress for legal professionals by providing better visibility and taking on routine tasks.
With all the talk about AI and the transformative benefit it will have for lawyers, it can be tempting to think these discussions are part of an ever-increasing hype cycle.
The problem is that these conversations focus on a very narrow set of benefits to using AI, especially in the legal profession.
Like many of the most important innovations in history, their actual value can’t be pinned down to any one point of influence. The automobile didn’t just “make us go faster,” it fundamentally altered how we think about personal transportation. The lightbulb didn’t just make it more convenient to light a few dark spaces; it meant that our days didn’t need to end when the sun went down. (To borrow a few analogies from the late Marshall McLuhan.)
These are just a few modern inventions that transformed our life and society in many different ways. Now, AI is only just beginning to have its own fundamental impact of similar scope and scale. And for lawyers, that transformation is already happening in concrete, measurable ways.
Research into how AI can help lawyers
One of the more exciting aspects of witnessing a breakthrough technology like AI emerge seemingly overnight is to observe how it manifests in our daily life. In addition to us finding new ways to apply AI every day, the technology itself is also fast evolving.
To keep up with what this means for lawyers and their law firms, Clio’s researchers have been undertaking extensive and rigorous studies to better understand how AI has benefitted legal professionals thus far, and what it all means for the future of legal practice. This research features analyses on data from tens of thousands of legal professionals, and is supported by extensive surveys and interviews.
These findings have been published in the latest Legal Trends Report, among other research into client perceptions on AI and the industry’s first neurological research into the cognitive load associated with legal work.
If you don’t have time to read the entire report, I get it. That’s why we’ve put together this summary of the 21 findings on how AI can help lawyers.
1. Increased accuracy
58% of legal professionals say that AI has increased the accuracy of their work. One of the advantages here is that AI can review and provide feedback and corrections on things like writing and grammar. But a more significant benefit is that lawyers and their staff can typically work more confidently knowing that AI offers a much greater scope of detail and analysis in legal research and in referencing and summarizing the facts of a case from an extensive corpus of client files.
With the benefit of a comprehensively deep background analysis, and recommendations on how to proceed with a case based on its facts, lawyers and their staff start off much further ahead in their work with clients, giving them more opportunities to question and refine their work into a better product.
2. Improved work quality
65% of legal professionals say that AI has improved the quality of their work, and 44% say that this will continue to be a significant benefit in the future.
The finding also aligns strongly with a previous study conducted by the Boston Consulting Group and published by the Harvard Business School, which found that AI greatly improved the work performance of consultants in their work. In addition to completing more tasks in less time, workers in the study produced 40% higher quality work, regardless of their skill, experience, or prior training.
With the AI capabilities in solutions like Clio Work, legal professionals can conduct more comprehensive analyses across a greater scope of resources.
Using Clio Work’s AI, lawyers can run extensive queries of over a billion court filings, legal publications, and jurisdictional case law in minutes, returning results that are more comprehensive than what an individual lawyer or paralegal could achieve in spending hours combing through extensive keyword combinations in their search queries.
As Pierce, a lawyer at a small business and real estate law firm in Missouri says, “If I run across something that I don’t know anything about, I now have confidence that AI will get me on the right path, and that’s huge.” (2025 Legal Trends Report)
3. Increased work capacity
54% of legal professionals increased their work capacity due to AI. This is because AI can take on a lot of the day-to-day work that contributes to the lawyers and their staff feeling over-worked and over-burdened in their day. When this work can be taken on and automated with an AI, this opens up bandwidth within individual staff members, and the team as a whole.
The number of uses and applications of AI in a law firm are legion. It is a boon to virtually any task that involves finding, reviewing, or synthesizing information, especially when a firm manages all of its casework in a centralized practice management solution. The capabilities in a solution like Manage AI can also take on specific tasks, including:
- Extracting key dates and deadlines from a collection of court documents and scheduling the necessary calendar events and assigning tasks.
- Initiating month-end billing by drafting client invoices and routing them to the appropriate responsible lawyers for review.
- Creating case notes, tasks, events, and expenses quickly to keep cases moving efficiently.
4. Time savings, efficiency, and fewer write-downs
62% of legal professionals say that using AI leads to time-savings and increased efficiencies. Whether it’s drafting a letter to a client, tracking down important case information, or catching up on important case details, these types of tasks can be done in a fraction of the time with AI.
One of the biggest challenges for many lawyers is managing the amount of time spent researching the law on behalf of their clients. If a legal issue is particularly complex or novel, this can often result in added hours spent reviewing case law. When it’s time to send the invoice to the client, this is often when lawyers see their hours written down—since this is when the client could raise a dispute.
To save firms the hours (and revenue) lost to these write downs, better efficiencies and time savings mean that lawyers can keep their research hours down, and in turn, actually bill for the work they do.
As Pierce says, “Before AI, I had to guess what keywords would trigger the right cases. Even then I wasn’t always confident that we were getting it all. I would spend an hour or two searching, trying to find relevant cases, going down rabbit holes. Now it takes literally five minutes and my first two hours of research are done.”
5. Increased revenue
36% of legal professionals using AI said that it’s increased their revenue; this jumps to 69% of those using AI more widely. In other words, as firms incorporate AI more completely into how they work, the more likely they are to see increasing financial gains.
One input to this is that when AI takes on the types of non-billable, administrative work that lawyers and paralegals often deal with in a typical day, this opens them up to focus more time on billable work that’s more valuable to the firm.
Things like calendaring, task management, client communications, searching case information, or even just prioritizing tasks. AI can take on the bulk of these tasks, which when added up, can put hours back into a lawyer’s day.
6. Reduced operational costs
33% of law firms reduced their operational costs with AI. One of the biggest findings from the latest Legal Trends Report is that—in a cohort analysis of growing, stable, and shrinking law firms—those that have seen the biggest increases in revenue did so with minimal increases in headcount.
Instead of spending more to hire additional staff, these firms were able to use technology to increase the capacity of the people they already had, which in turn they’re able to put towards more revenue-generating work.
AI also creates opportunities for firm leaders to explore creative solutions to problems that they would have otherwise had to hire an expensive consultant. Casey, a partner at a mid-sized civil litigation firm in California, says, “Last year, I paid a consultant thousands of dollars to help us understand our staff needs as we continue to grow in 2025 and 2026. Now, I can plug those numbers into an AI and get that same advice instantaneously, and at a cost that’s included in my AI subscription.” (2025 Legal Trends Report)
7. Increased law firm profitability
36% of legal professionals say that AI has increased their firm’s profitability. As firms both increase revenue generation by putting more time into billable work and reduce costs, they inevitably increase profit. This can be a major benefit to equity partners, but also the firm as a whole if these profits get reinvested into the business.
8. Business growth
18% of legal professionals foresee being able to grow their business with AI. Based on the many benefits that we’ve seen for law firms using AI, we expect this number to grow in the future, especially if firms bring in more revenues as a result of their AI use.
In fact, as shown in Clio’s cohort analysis published in the Legal Trends Report, growing law firms are about twice as likely to be using AI in Clio compared to firms that have seen their revenues either shrink or stay the same.
9. Improved client responsiveness
63% of legal professionals say AI has improved their responsiveness to clients. One of the most common uses for AI is drafting communications that can be quickly sent to clients.
Since context is so important to the quality of AI-generated communications, a case management solution like Clio Manage is becoming an indispensable tool for lawyer-client communications. In addition to storing case information, Clio Manage allows firms to manage emails, phone conversations, and text messages, which can be sent and received directly from the platform to the client’s phone number or Clio’s secure client app.
With all of this information tracked in one place, Clio’s AI can quickly draft messages based on the client’s message history, case notes, and any documentation you might already have on file.
Ezra, a partner at a general practice in Indiana, explains how AI can also provide insight into how to better communicate with clients. He says, “AI helps explain difficult legal concepts in ways that clients understand. I can ask it to rewrite something I’ve used a million times and see what’s missing for the client.”
Combined with Clio’s legal research workflows, Ezra can respond to clients quickly regarding their case. “I can query the AI as I would an associate lawyer. I get the response back very quickly, which I can then pass along to our client.” (2025 Legal Trends Report)
10. Improved client satisfaction
34% of legal professionals report improved client satisfaction due to their use of AI. When AI can help improve the speed and responsiveness of a law firm in the work that they do for clients, in addition to benefiting the overall quality of the work, clients notice.
As Sebastian, owner of a small law firm working in real estate, construction disputes, and transactions in California, says: “I don’t specifically tell clients, ‘This was generated by AI.’ But I have seen that clients are happy with the quality of the work, product, and clarity.” (2025 Legal Trends Report)
11. Increased competitiveness
29% of legal professionals said that AI has made their firm more competitive. Improved work quality, efficiency, responsiveness to clients—all of these are critical to building the type of brand and reputation for a law firm that stands out against the rest.
This can manifest in better reviews and referrals, more competitive rates due to improved efficiencies, and also the ability to be more responsive to potential clients when they first reach out; being able to answer initial questions while a potential client is shopping around often means being able to make a good impression and build trust before another firm can do the same.
12. Job opportunities
While other industries have seen job losses with the uptake of AI, this isn’t the case in legal; 93% of law grads found jobs in 2025, a year that also saw the largest number of graduating students in nearly a decade, according to a report published by the National Association for Law Placement.
The report also highlights that new grads are also finding more full-time “attorney positions” requiring bar admission. Eighty-three percent of grads landed full-time, long-term attorney positions compared to just 57% in 2011.
13. Career advancement
In addition to the strong increases in job demand within the legal profession, 38% of legal professionals said that AI has created new opportunities for development and advancement.
As legal professionals continue to take on more complex and strategic work that have a greater impact on the success of their law firms, this in turn opens up new role opportunities. This means that instead of paying for more staff to handle menial data-entry and calendaring tasks, firms can invest more in staff that are focused on overseeing larger strategic initiatives and processes that firms can derive more value from.
14. Less tedious work
62% of legal professionals say that AI has reduced the amount of tedious work they have to do. While there’s no doubt that tasks like end-of-month billing, researching case law, and client follow ups are important and valuable to any law firm, the fact that these tasks can be fully, or at least partially, automated with AI means that firm staff don’t have to be mentally bogged down with work they don’t enjoy.
In fact, neurological studies show that the cognitive load associated with these types of work can be alleviated by augmenting them with technology. The research indicates these innovations can reduce the amount of mental energy required to stay mentally focused and to remember small details. In fact, the findings show that using a practice management solution like Clio can reduce total cognitive load by up to 25% in legal professionals.
15. More capacity to handle complex work
53% of legal professionals say that AI has empowered them to handle more complex work. One of the most difficult aspects to handling a large case is being able to work through all of the details and to organize a coherent understanding and approach to handling the matter.
AI can help lawyers navigate the most complex legal situations by summarizing key points and highlighting critical patterns necessary in both understanding as well as advancing a case forward. For individual legal professionals, the confidence gained from this is huge in being able to work through problems and to confidently explain to clients what paths they have to move forward with.
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16. Reduced stress
47% of legal professionals say that AI has reduced the stress they feel at work. In addition to feeling more confident about the accuracy and quality of their work, AI also creates an added layer of comfort.
It will take on routine day-to-day work like scheduling court deadlines, creating case notes, and logging time and expenses, as well as keep an eye out for important priorities and risks to flag before they become issues (e.g. an unforeseen/imminent deadline) that require attentive fire-fighting.
With better visibility and foresight into upcoming work, everyone at the firm has the benefit of better, more proactive visibility into important priorities, so that there’s less risk of a last-minute, late-night scramble to get them done.
17. Improved work-life balance
48% of legal professionals said that AI has improved their work-life balance. When you’re more on top of your work, and less likely to have to stay late at the office, that means more time to focus on the personal spheres of your life. Things like family, social life, and fitness and health.
Avoiding tedious work and the mental strain that can come with repetitive administrative tasks can also open up headspace in individuals, so that we can be more present in life outside of work.
18. Improved job satisfaction
46% of legal professionals say that AI has improved their job satisfaction. Research conducted through in-depth interviews of legal professionals for the Legal Trends Report found that repetitive administrative work, work overload, and poor work-life balance are significant factors in reducing motivation in legal professionals.
On the other hand, positive relationships with clients, intellectual challenges, and more control over their work are factors that are more likely to motivate law firm staff.
As AI solutions continue to take on the repetitive administrative work that lawyers and their staff consistently dread, they’ll be able to focus more on the types of work that keeps them interested and engaged in their work.
19. Increased staff retention
36% of legal professionals said that they were more likely to stay in their current role due to AI. For firm managers, this is a big one, since staff turnover can be a major drain on firm resources and productivity. Losing a member of the team means that their work needs to be taken on by others. It also means that the firm needs to spend time finding a replacement and training them up.
In many cases, it could be six months before a firm is back to capacity, and if they lose someone exceptional, it could mean losing a part of the team that will never be replaced.
So, while many are touting the benefits of AI to enhance productivity and efficiency in law firms, one of the biggest benefits may be that it makes many legal professionals actually happy in their jobs and in the work they do. In other words, AI isn’t just making us more productive, it’s fundamentally changing our relationship to our work.
20. New technology innovations
71% of legal professionals are more motivated to keep up with technology because of the new advancements made in AI. Since many in the legal profession have a reputation for being adverse to new technologies, the fact that AI has been such a motivator to explore new solutions and new ways of doing things shows great promise for the wider legal profession.
As law firms find new ways to innovate their service offerings, they’ll benefit both the legal professionals working at them as well as their clients.
21. More productive case management
38% of legal professionals say that AI will make their case management more productive. When working with a case management system like Clio Manage, firms have the benefit of having a single source of truth for all of their information. This includes everything from case notes, communications, and documents to task management, time entries, and billing.
But as firms grow and become more complex, the work in managing and prioritizing all of this information can be a job in itself. This is where built-in AI capabilities can help schedule deadlines, automatically draft monthly bills, draft motions and correspondence based on new case updates, and much more. Clio’s AI automates the work that keeps cases organized and moving, so that firm staff can keep focused on delivering better outcomes.
With Clio Work, Clio also offers integrated legal research capabilities that will securely research and draft legal summaries and content based on the nuanced information stored in your files. When used in this way, Clio offers a comprehensive approach to managing firm data and applying it to the legal work that lawyers do for their clients.
Explore new capabilities for your law firm with Clio’s Intelligent Legal Work Platform
We’ve covered a substantial number of benefits to using AI in a law firm, including everything from increased accuracy and revenue growth to improved work-life balance and staff retention.
To realize these benefits, and to discover more of your own, the most important thing to know about using AI is that it works best when it has (secure and private) access to the rich context of your cases, clients, and workflows, in addition to a vast library of legal data.
This isn’t something you get with AI solutions like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or one of the many consumer-facing AI solutions out there. Clio’s case management and legal research platform is designed and built specifically for legal professionals, offering an integrated AI experience that helps you get more done in a day.
If you’d like to learn more about how to unlock the many benefits of AI at your legal practice, book your demo today.
Book a Clio demoHow can AI help lawyers day to day?
AI can help lawyers by speeding up research and drafting, summarizing case materials, improving client communication drafts, and automating routine workflows like billing, time entry, and task creation.
What are the biggest benefits of AI in law firms?
The biggest benefits include higher-quality work, faster turnaround times, improved client responsiveness, more capacity without adding headcount, and better firm economics through lower write-downs and reduced operating costs.
Does AI actually improve legal work quality, or just speed?
AI can improve quality when it helps lawyers start with a more complete information set (research, summaries, issue spotting) and reduces fatigue and rework, while lawyers still apply professional judgment and review.
How does AI reduce write-downs and increase realization?
AI can reduce write-downs by shortening research time, improving confidence in research completeness, and reducing rework. That makes billed time easier to justify and less likely to be discounted.
Can AI increase revenue for law firms?
Yes. AI can increase revenue by freeing time for more billable work, improving responsiveness that helps convert new business, and helping firms take on more matters without proportional increases in headcount.
What are common barriers to adopting AI in a law firm?
Common barriers include uncertainty about accuracy, concerns about confidentiality, lack of clear policies, inconsistent workflows, and limited training, especially when AI is adopted as a standalone tool instead of being integrated into daily systems.
How should law firms use AI safely and responsibly?
Firms should adopt clear policies for permitted use, train staff on confidentiality and verification, keep humans accountable for final work product, and prefer AI that works within secure legal workflows and systems of record.
How long does it take for a law firm to see value from AI?
Many firms see early value quickly in repetitive tasks like drafting communications, summarizing documents, and billing workflows. Larger gains typically appear as AI use expands across more workflows and becomes routine.
Will AI replace lawyers or reduce legal jobs?
AI is more likely to change how legal work is done than replace lawyers. It tends to shift time away from repetitive tasks and toward higher-value work like strategy, judgment, client counseling, and complex problem-solving.
What should a law firm measure to evaluate AI impact?
Firms can measure AI impact through time saved on common tasks, reduced write-downs, faster turnaround, improved client responsiveness, higher completion quality, lower rework, and staff satisfaction and retention trends.
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