By, Novema Pte Ltd, February 2026
Any profession that needs to access, synthesise, and analyse data and information will see the gradual, if not rapid, integration of AI within its industry.
Applications of AI in the legal profession are, in some ways, similar to those in the research industry. AI will not replace humans, but it will change the way they work, ultimately delivering benefits in efficiency, speed, and cost savings. This allows the “human lawyer” to focus on strategy and client counselling rather than more tedious tasks.
The main applications of AI in the legal profession include tools that can search databases of cases, statutes, and regulations; surface relevant precedents; summarise lengthy judgments; and even track how specific judges rule on particular issues.
AI also has a role in contract drafting, particularly for more standardised or boilerplate contracts. It can automate repetitive documents and due-diligence reports.
Further applications of AI can be found in the ongoing monitoring of the legal system, such as compliance and regulatory monitoring, identifying changes across multiple jurisdictions, flagging potential compliance breaches, and generating audit trails. This can be particularly useful in highly regulated industries such as finance and healthcare.
Internally, AI can be used within firms to help organise work and knowledge libraries, assisting in finding relevant communications and capturing institutional expertise that would otherwise remain siloed.
Beyond greater efficiency and time and cost savings, the benefits of AI within law firms also include reducing human error, bias, and fatigue.
However, the downsides of AI use in the legal profession mirror those seen in the research industry, including a lack of human accountability, the risk of bias, and concerns around data security.
Bias largely stems from how legal AI systems are trained. When based on historical data, AI can miss outliers and exceptions, fail to account for new cases, or misapply findings across different markets or jurisdictions.
As in the market research industry, the use of AI in the legal profession can lead to a loss of human judgment, including the ability to identify new issues, apply contextual understanding, and demonstrate emotional intelligence when dealing with clients.
Furthermore, AI can hallucinate and misinterpret nuance. From Novema’s own research into AI applications in market research, we observe a loss of detail in AI-driven analysis. While such loss of detail may be criticised by clients as a lack of depth in research, similar shortcomings in legal contexts can have far more serious consequences.
Although AI can generate time and cost savings for law firms, specialist AI tools can be expensive, lock firms into proprietary ecosystems, and create reliance on third-party vendors. This shifts power from legal professionals to technology providers and has the potential to create a two-tier justice system, where well-funded clients and firms gain access to more sophisticated tools.
AI also poses several threats to the legal profession that lawyers are keen to avoid.
Initial online searches into specific legal issues usually delivers quite informative AI-enabled responses, sometimes enough for the layman to outline their initial claim or arguments without expending on a lawyer, e.g. in the case of an employee facing unfair dismissal.
Some may opt to use legal chatbots for initial “consultations,” basic guidance, or even the preparation of simple documents or contracts, particularly for small businesses. While more complex or ‘high stakes’ legal issues will still require human lawyers, the loss of these initial consultations represents potential lost revenue for firms.
But the regulatory environment may help “protect” the human lawyer. Courts may reject AI-generated evidence or sanction lawyers for improper use of AI. Defence lawyers can request disclosure of AI involvement in cases and seek to undermine its use where it disadvantages their client. Improper use of AI can result in sanctions against individual lawyers. One example occurred in a US District Court, where a legal brief contained multiple fabricated case citations and quotations generated by ChatGPT. The judge criticised the lawyers for failing to verify the AI’s output and imposed fines on the law firm.
Human lawyers have worked extremely hard to reach their current positions, and there is a natural tendency to highlight the shortcomings of AI-supported legal advice and services to clients. While law firms can benefit from AI internally, over-reliance on these tools risks deskilling lawyers and reducing junior positions that traditionally develop the next generation of senior practitioners.
When today’s senior lawyers retire, we could find ourselves facing a significant shortage of experienced human lawyers.
