It's not much of a stretch to argue that the processes of the average law firm or corporate legal department are riddled with inefficiencies. The status quo in how organizations deliver their services was developed on the basis of whatever worked (more or less) given the available human and technological support that existed originally, perhaps revised in a haphazard fashion based on the requirements of particular regulations or client demands.

So, AI can help best by rooting out and eliminating these inefficiencies through various avenues. It can be used to automate low-value, time-intensive tasks to liberate time for higher-level functions. It can be used to set up data management systems to handle the continuing, almost exponential explosion of data that can be harnessed outside of the discovery process or as an investigatory and risk avoidance tool. It also can be used to check legal billing against guidelines to avoid client audit issues. In essence, legal services can be divided into their constituent parts and AI can be inserted at various "pain points" to promote efficiency and improve outcomes.

One popular new AI product is CoCounsel by Casetext. This product combines assistance with legal research (including case summaries and research memos), document review (identifying key documents and evaluating for privilege) and contract drafting (identifying antiquated terms, conflicts and risks, and recommending current examples and language). It boasts more than 10,000 law firm users.

Case Notebook, a Thomson Reuters product, is litigation case management software that enables easier location of key information in transcripts, exhibits and research, and may be shared across a litigation team. Another advertised feature of this product is built-in LiveNote real-time and stream capabilities that allow users to follow the live transcript of legal depositions and proceedings and stream it to remote participants. (Westlaw Today and Reuters Legal News are published by Thomson Reuters.)

Intapp provides firmwide and external collaboration and document management, risk and compliance solutions (including conflicts clearance) and operations assistance. As part of operations, this cloud-based product features intelligent time entry and compliance during billing and time recording.

Or say a company needs to perform an internal audit of emails and other company documents for compliance purposes, or a one-off e-discovery project. Software provider Brainspace argues that its products combine human expertise with interactive data visualizations and machine learning to accelerate the identification of what matters in a given search.

Still another scenario might involve an in-house staff struggling to address a high volume of subpoenas from third parties. Safari offers a system that sorts subpoenas for routine or escalated handling, tracks status and deadlines, allows owners to upload their documents and sends them to the issuer, and even invoices the requesting party for reimbursement costs.

These five examples just scratch the surface of the wealth of products incorporating AI that are available to practitioners already. The legal vendor space is quickly filling with solutions that can address inefficiencies from the inception of legal services delivery to completion, and allow lawyers to leverage technology to better prepare for litigation — and construct transactions to better avoid it.

By the way, in the authors' view, none of these products on their face suggest a world without human lawyers. To the contrary, they suggest an interactive world between machines and humans where lawyers and support staff spend less time on nonproductive "busywork," and more focused effort on obtaining the results for which their clients are paying them. The output and quality of AI-enhanced work will no doubt need to be supervised by humans to satisfy ethical obligations, but this will require a fraction of the time spent today.

Vendor solutions such as those described herein are a no-brainer for Am Law 100 firms and Fortune 500 in-house legal departments. But what about smaller firms? Despite the recognition of how far AI has come, participants in the legal space are a conservative lot – often last to adapt to new technology and first to question the costs of incorporating it. This can result in partial adoption in ways that defeat the purpose of the change. In the last century that might have entailed a law firm replacing every secretary's electric typewriter with a PC – but not giving computers to attorneys, and forcing them to continue dictating briefs, letters and pleadings onto cassette tape for the secretaries to type up, with all the inefficiency that would entail.

Today, it is likely that for many smaller law firms and companies with a limited in-house legal staff, even now the budget for upgrading technology and processes will be tight. As such, it may make sense for thought leaders in those organizations to champion the incorporation of general-use products that have AI built into them for certain tasks, to make a demonstrable case for the potential return on investment in further AI adaptation.

As an example, let's say a small company needs to set up a legal hold. Allison Walton, CEO of Fortis Quay, an information governance, e-discovery and compliance solutions company, recommends, in a conversation with one of the authors, the use of the free online Survey Monkey platform to construct custodian interviews quickly and efficiently.

Walton also points to new generative AI features that Google is adding to its ubiquitous products, including Google Docs, Gmail and Slides. When using these upgrades, a junior associate could input a few bullet points and have Google Gmail draft a complete email. A paralegal could import AI images, audio and video into an enhanced Google Slides presentation for use at mediation or trial.

Lawyers won't be replaced by machines any time soon. AI glitches will occasionally happen in the future, not unlike a laptop crashing. What is driving adaptation of increasingly sophisticated AI into the business of law is the tremendous savings in time and money that result from ridding old processes of unnecessary duplication of effort and the value add that comes from leveraging the power of ever-growing amounts of data. When it comes to the future of AI, "The Godfather" is most instructive: "Leave the gun, take the cannoli."