Top 8 Legal AI Tools: Improve Firm Productivity
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the way law firms operate. Legal AI tools are making it easier for lawyers and legal professionals to streamline processes, automate tasks, and increase efficiency and productivity.
According to recent reports, law firms are well on their way to adopting and implementing AI technology. An article from The American Bar Association revealed 35% of attorneys have already integrated AI into their practice, and 57% intend to implement it within the next three years. As for reasons fueling the adoption, MyCase’s Legal Industry Report 2024 found 81% of firms surveyed are using AI to increase productivity and efficiency and 50% are interested in exploring new technologies.
It can be challenging to understand the different types of legal AI tools and their benefits. Let’s explore what legal AI tools can do for your firm. From client intake and document automation to eDiscovery and legal billing, we’ll cover what legal AI tools are, why lawyers are adopting them, and the top 8 legal AI tools firms can use to improve productivity.
What Are Legal AI Tools?
Legal AI tools are software programs designed to enhance and streamline law firm processes. Sometimes referred to as lawyer AI, legal AI, or AI legal assistants, legal AI tools use algorithms and machine learning to automate tasks that are typically repetitive and time-consuming.
To leverage the full potential of legal AI tools, it’s important to understand two branches of computer science: traditional AI and generative AI.
Traditional AI uses computer systems to perform tasks. Useful for problem-solving, decision-making, and automating processes, traditional AI’s strength lies in analyzing and interpreting existing data. Examples of traditional AI include chatbots, voice assistants, and search engines.
Generative AI is a branch of AI that focuses on generating new content. From images to text and music, generative AI systems are trained on large datasets and form new content by identifying patterns to create new variations. Examples of generative AI include ChatGPT and Midjourney.
Why Should Lawyers Use Legal AI Tools?
When lawyers and legal professionals incorporate legal AI tools into their practice, they not only increase their time spent on billable work—they also improve a law firm’s overall productivity.
A new study on the impact of generative AI on highly skilled workers found that AI improved a skilled worker’s performance by 40% compared to workers who didn’t use it. And, according to our Legal Industry Report 2024, 77% of firms surveyed said generative AI tools helped to improve their productivity.
In addition to increasing efficiency and time spent on billable work, legal AI tools also help firms:
- Save time on repetitive tasks like contract drafting and document review
- Improve communication with legal teams and clients
- Free up time to invest in high-value work like optimizing client experiences and achieving successful outcomes
The motivations driving AI adoption are also worth highlighting. According to MyCase’s 2024 Legal Industry Report, of the firms surveyed:
- 51% adopted AI to increase cost-savings and efficiency
- 28% replaced some admin functions
- 18% replaced some legal functions
- 13% replaced previously outsourced work
- 10% replaced an admin employee
Types of Legal AI Tools
There are many different types of legal AI tools available to lawyers, and each is designed to help law firms in unique ways. Below are a few of the most common categories of legal AI software.
AI Law Practice Management (LPM) Tools
What they do: Law Practice Management helps law firms run the business side of their practice. With an LPM, AI helps lawyers manage case details and court deadlines, track tasks and automate document creation, streamline client communication, track time, invoice clients, accept online payments, and more.
Who uses them: Solo, small, and mid-sized firms.
AI Legal Analytics Tools
What they do: Legal and litigation analytics AI software sorts through and analyzes massive amounts of litigation data, providing reports and data points that enable lawyers to make informed decisions about the course of a litigation matter.
Who uses them: Litigation attorneys (often in larger firms).
AI Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) Tools
What they do: Contract Lifecycle Management is generative AI software that facilitates contract intake, drafting, negotiation, and management. CLM tools are designed to make traditionally static contracts more accessible and valuable, enabling the use of datasets to inform decision-making and support key business objectives.
Who uses them: In-house counsel; sometimes larger law firms.
AI eDiscovery Tools
What they do: Designed to manage the electronic discovery process during litigation or investigations, AI eDiscovery tools facilitate the identification, collection, preservation, processing, review, and analysis of electronic documents and data relevant to legal cases. These tools sift through mountains of data and often provide features such as keyword search, tagging, redaction, and production capabilities.
Who uses them: Smaller litigation firms and larger firms.
AI Legal Research Tools
What they do: AI legal research tools enable lawyers and legal professionals to search for relevant case law, statutory and regulatory law, and treatises about specific topics or issues. The software is designed to dramatically reduce research time by streamlining the access and analysis of information quickly.
Who uses them: Firms of all sizes.
AI Brief Drafting and Analysis Tools
What they do: Brief drafting and analysis AI tools assist with the drafting of legal documents, including appellate briefs and memoranda of law, by improving writing and suggesting edits. Some tools also include the ability to check case citations and enable the comparison of statements made in briefs to source documents like deposition and trial transcripts.
Who uses them: Litigators and appellate lawyers.
Top 8 Legal AI Tools
Legal AI tools are rapidly transforming how law firms and legal professionals operate. But with so many lawyer AI and AI legal assistant options available on the market, choosing the right software for your firm can be overwhelming.
To help simplify your options, we’ve compiled a list of the top 8 legal AI tools available to firms today.
1. MyCase IQ
Category: AI Law Practice Management (LPM)
Capabilities: MyCase IQ helps law firms infuse automation and efficiency into their daily case management workflows with AI designed for legal professionals. For example, intelligent text editing technology helps firms enhance their writing by making it easy to edit and refine content quickly and efficiently.
2. Lex Machina
Category: AI Legal Analytics
Capabilities: Lex Machina is litigation analytics software that mines litigation data to deliver insights about lawyers, judges, parties, and experts. The platform uses a combination of machine learning and in-house legal experts to provide up-to-date data to help lawyers gain a competitive edge. Its Quick Tools feature gives lawyers instant access to analytic insights for use cases such as comparing courts, judges, early case assessment, and patent portfolio evaluation.
3. vLex
Category: AI Legal Research
Capabilities: vLex is a legal AI tool that bridges the gap between legal information and technology. The platform allows users to search a large regulatory database (which includes 1 billion documents from 100 countries), and its generative AI tool—Vincent AI—helps legal professionals simplify contract, document, litigation, and research workflows. Vincent can also answer legal questions, build arguments, and compare jurisdictions to enhance firm efficiency and accuracy.
4. Luminance Corporate
Category: AI Contract Lifecycle Management
Capabilities: Luminance Corporate’s “Ask Lumi” feature enhances Luminance Corporate by facilitating contract due diligence. Using targeted data extraction and risk assessment insights, Ask Lumi provides immediate answers to specific contract questions and also automates the contract management process by responding to questions in real-time about both contracts under negotiation and finalized agreements.
5. Relativity
Category: AI eDiscovery
Capabilities: Built to help legal professionals better manage the eDiscovery process, Relativity uses generative AI to solve specific legal challenges. Its suite of aiR products (aiR for Review, aiR for Privilege, and aiR for Case Strategy) can tackle tasks like finding relevant documents, building case narratives, pinpointing privileged information, and reducing disclosure risks.
6. ContractPodAi
Category: AI Contract Lifecycle Management
Capabilities: ContractPodAi simplifies and streamlines legal processes like contract management and legal intake. Leah, its legally trained generative AI tool, helps legal professionals draft documents like contracts and case summaries, build executive summaries and deviation reports, and extract legal data from legal documentation. The solution also delivers a complete picture of a user’s GenAI adoption across teams and projects to ensure value and maximize ROI.
7. Logikcull
Category: AI eDiscovery
Capabilities: Logikcull helps legal firms move faster, capture more billables, and reduce client costs. The legal AI tool streamlines document review with bulk redactions, automatic tagging for privilege, and PII detection. It also indexes and duplicates data, then sorts it into pre-defined search filters so important documents can be surfaced quickly.
8. Clearbrief
Category: AI Brief Drafting and Analysis
Capabilities: Clearbrief streamlines legal writing and document analysis by synching documents from eDiscovery and practice management systems and then generating hyperlinked citations. The platform leverages AI to expedite fact-checking and uses advanced AI algorithms to identify false case citations, spot factual weaknesses in arguments, and detect mistakes within legal documents.
The Future of Legal AI Tools
The future of legal AI is vibrant. Today’s legal AI tools help firms work smarter to maximize time, reduce costs, and improve productivity. With the right AI tools and technologies, firms and legal teams can gain an edge over their competition and pave the way toward a more productive and profitable future.
MyCase IQ is responsible GenAI embedded throughout our practice management software and offers an advanced suite of AI-powered tools designed to enhance the productivity and accuracy of legal professionals, including Intelligent Document Summary and Text Editing.
Explore how MyCase IQ can revolutionize your legal practice by scheduling a personalized demo.
