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Time and cost savings from GenAI beget ‘focus on more challenging, rewarding, and higher-value work’
New findings highlight the “transformative impact” that generative AI has on the spending habits of in-house legal teams, with such time and cost savings providing in-house teams more scope to dedicate attention to more substantive tasks.
Jerome Doraisamy
As reported last week by Lawyers Weekly, the GenAI and Future Corporate Legal Work: How Ready Are In-house Teams? report, published by the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and cloud-native litigation and investigation platform Everlaw, found, among other things, that one in four (25 per cent) of law departments are already experiencing cost savings on operational expenditures from using generative AI (GenAI), and one in two (49 per cent) expect reduced operational costs from AI use.
Moreover, three in five (58 per cent) of law departments expect a reduced reliance on outside legal service providers, specifically due to GenAI – a figure that has more than doubled from the 2023 version of the report, where 25 per cent of those surveyed said they would cut the number of law firms they work with at some point in the next year.
Reflecting on the capacity of GenAI to help law departments cut costs, Thomson Reuters’ vice president (Asia and emerging markets) Carl Olson (pictured) said that such platforms are “transforming the way legal professionals work”.
GenAI, he proclaimed, is “simultaneously driving greater productivity and value. The technology is unlocking the potential for legal professionals to do complex work confidently in less time and at a lower cost”.
“AI solutions, such as Thomson Reuters CoCounsel, are effective at handling large volumes of data at unprecedented speed. Thomson Reuters found that reviewing 100 pages of documents would typically take a lawyer one to four hours to read, yet generative AI-powered solutions can review and accurately answer complex questions in just three minutes,” he said.
Thomson Reuters’ most recent Future of Professionals research, Olson continued, showed that lawyers predict that AI has the potential to save them four hours per week in the next year alone.
This is, he noted, the equivalent of an additional colleague for every 10 members of the team.
“With these time and cost savings, legal professionals are empowered to focus on more challenging, rewarding, and higher-value work,” Olson said.
Speaking about the report’s findings, ACC president and chief executive Veta T. Richardson said: “With GenAI’s potential to significantly increase efficiency, improve client service, and cut costs, it’s no wonder legal leaders are embracing this technology as they are continuously asked to do more with less.
“Those that can effectively integrate GenAI into their department’s operations, while providing the necessary balance of safeguards and training, clearly have a lot to gain.”
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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