Can AI Change The Legal Profession Forever?
Sajal Singh is a Consulting Partner at Kyndryl Nordics, Global Innovation Expert for UN Compact. Board member, IE Business School, Spain.
In 2020, Detroit resident Robert Williams was wrongfully arrested after an AI-powered facial recognition system misidentified him as a suspect despite the system's known limitations and warnings. He spent hours in custody before the mistake was uncovered—a stark reminder that AI bias isn't theoretical but deeply consequential. Similar cases have occurred elsewhere, and tools like the COMPAS algorithm have been shown to falsely label Black defendants as high-risk nearly twice as often as white defendants. These stories reveal a disturbing truth: AI can automate and amplify existing biases, leading to real-world injustice. The question we must ask is: When algorithms make mistakes in the legal system, who is held accountable, and how do we ensure fairness and oversight?
These are deep questions that require much more than an article. But before we ever get to that stage, AI has many questions to answer for itself. Nevertheless, the legal industry is taking early advantage of AI despite concerns about secular adoption, as I have noted in my prior analyses of AI industry trends.
According to the 2024 edition of the American Bar Association's Legal Technology Survey Report, AI adoption within the legal profession nearly tripled year-over-year, from 11% in 2023 to 30% in 2024. This growth spans all firm sizes, though larger firms are implementing AI at a faster pace.
This trend is particularly noteworthy when compared to previous technology transitions. A 2024 survey by ACEDS and Everlaw found that legal professionals in the U.S. are adopting generative AI roughly five times faster than they did cloud-based eDiscovery software. This unprecedented rate of adoption underscores the transformative potential that legal professionals see in AI technologies.
Market data further illustrates this growth trajectory. The global legal AI market was valued at $1.45 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.3% from 2025 to 2030.
The rapid adoption of AI in legal practice is driven by compelling efficiency and performance gains. Research comparing large language models (LLMs) to traditional legal invoice reviewers revealed striking efficiency differences: While human lawyers take 194 to 316 seconds per invoice review, LLMs can complete reviews in as little as 3.6 seconds. This represents a 98% reduction in processing time.
Cost efficiencies are equally impressive. The same report shows that this reduction in review time adds up to 99.97% in saved expenses. Similar efficiency gains are being observed in contract review processes, where LLMs complete reviews in mere seconds compared to the hours required by human reviewers.
So, for a mid-sized firm reviewing 5,000 invoices annually, AI could slash labor costs from $21,350 (human reviewers) to $0.15 (AI systems). This 99.97% cost reduction directly boosts margins by lowering operational expenses. Manual legal work carries inherent error rates of 15% to 20% in tasks like contract clause identification. AI systems can reduce errors by 60%, minimizing costly revisions and liability risks. For a firm generating $10 million annually, a 5% reduction in error-related losses preserves $500,000 in revenue.
As for usage, according to the 2025 State of Contracting Survey, the leading use case for AI adoption is contract review. The survey found that 14% of legal teams are now using AI for contract review, up from 8% in early 2024. When asked about key advantages, legal teams cited three primary benefits: faster turnaround times, time savings and reduced tedious work. We're seeing legal professionals also actively integrating AI tools for document review and discovery purposes. This represents a clear evolution from cautious exploration to broader deployment throughout 2024. Key benefits driving this adoption include improved service delivery, competitive differentiation and cost savings.
As AI adoption accelerates, regulatory frameworks are evolving to address the unique challenges and opportunities these technologies present. In March 2024, the European Parliament formally adopted the EU Artificial Intelligence Act ("AI Act"), establishing the first comprehensive regulatory framework for AI globally. Shortly after, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the first global resolution on artificial intelligence, designed to encourage the protection of personal data, risk monitoring and human rights safeguards.
These regulatory developments are not deterring adoption but are encouraging responsible innovation. A stable regulatory framework reduces uncertainty and promotes investment in AI research and development, particularly in industries with stringent requirements such as legal services.
The data suggests that AI adoption in legal practice has reached a critical inflection point. Law students are increasingly recognizing the importance of AI skills for their future careers. A survey conducted from July to August 2024 found that law students view AI competency as essential not only for operational effectiveness but also for helping formulate future legal frameworks that will regulate this technology across industries.
AI is fundamentally transforming the legal profession through unprecedented adoption rates, significant efficiency gains and expanding applications across multiple areas of practice. As the technology continues to mature and regulatory frameworks evolve, AI will likely shift from being a competitive advantage to an essential component of legal practice.
This transformation extends beyond simple automation of routine tasks. It's clear that AI can enable legal professionals to deliver services more efficiently, accurately and cost-effectively, allowing them to focus on more strategic and complex aspects of legal work. But can justice ever be on autopilot?
Disrupting the scales of justice through AI seems to be some time away. But when justice is coded, who can be held accountable for mistakes or discrimination? These are the larger questions that lie way beyond what industry has adopted until now and will require a larger cross-section of society to deliberate. Law and AI seem to be less interesting than law and AGI put together. That is when we as a society will have to consider if, sometimes, it is just better to be old-fashioned.
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