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1 in 3 private practice lawyers want a GenAI assistant
Law firms’ tech investments are set to climb in the coming year, with generative AI legal assistants being the most sought-after technology, new research shows.
Jerome Doraisamy
Thomson Reuters has released its annual Tech, AI and the Law report, which, this year, between 1 July and 30 August, surveyed 869 legal professionals (private practice and in-house) about their attitudes and perceptions towards legal technology and innovation.
The report confirms that, for those in private practice, generative AI (GenAI) has been a “significant disruptor” with “unlimited potential to augment and accelerate” legal work, with a majority appreciating its expanding potential.
More than three in four (77 per cent) of those in law firms, the report showed, believe that GenAI makes a positive difference to their firms’ toolkits, with one in five (19 per cent) believing it makes a “significantly” positive difference.
Only 1 per cent of those surveyed in firms believe that GenAI makes a negative difference.
Perhaps as a result of such favourable perceptions of GenAI, nearly half (45 per cent) of those surveyed anticipate that their firms’ investments in legal tech will increase by 20 per cent or more in the coming year. Three in five (59 per cent) believe such investments will increase, at least to some extent.
Perhaps most notably, the report found that one in three private practice professionals (32 per cent) believe that their firms should adopt GenAI legal assistants.
The number of lawyers in firms wanting such assistants could be interpreted against the backdrop of the report also finding that three in 10 (31 per cent) of private practice professionals say they use unofficial AI to support them at work. Such support appears to come in the form of “drudge work” and workload management, with more than three-quarters of those surveyed saying they use AI for such purposes.
“By leveraging GenAI legal tools to support administrative work and other preliminary tasks, law firm professionals can reinvest the time saved to generate value for the organisation through more impactful strategic work, or by developing, and updating their legal skill set,” Thomson Reuters said.
In conversation with Lawyers Weekly, Thomson Reuters senior director of AI and legal tech Catherine Roberts (pictured) said that “the appetite for an AI-empowered Australian legal profession is growing”, particularly in light of one in three private practice professionals voting for a GenAI legal assistant as their firms’ next tech investment.
This said, she added, “leaders need to proactively provide their teams with trusted, professional-grade AI to prevent the rise of legal professionals using unauthorised tools to support their work”.
Respondents also seem aware of such challenges with GenAI – the report also found that 39 per cent of those surveyed see upskilling the workforce on using such emerging technologies as being a significant challenge for their firms.
Roberts said: “CoCounsel, our professional-grade GenAI assistant, is grounded in trusted Thomson Reuters content and driven by legal subject matter experts who understand the complexities of the law.”
“It enables professionals to capture the opportunities GenAI presents, including more time to focus on delivering higher-value, human-centric work.”
Jerome Doraisamy
Jerome Doraisamy is the editor of Lawyers Weekly. A former lawyer, he has worked at Momentum Media as a journalist on Lawyers Weekly since February 2018, and has served as editor since March 2022. He is also the host of all five shows under The Lawyers Weekly Podcast Network, and has overseen the brand's audio medium growth from 4,000 downloads per month to over 60,000 downloads per month, making The Lawyers Weekly Show the most popular industry-specific podcast in Australia. Jerome is also the author of The Wellness Doctrines book series, an admitted solicitor in NSW, and a board director of Minds Count.
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