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The legal industry is in the middle of a shift, with artificial intelligence (AI) playing a bigger role every day. From drafting contracts to reviewing case files, the way work gets done is being reshaped faster than many predicted.
Lawyers once spent endless hours buried in documents or wasting energy on repetitive tasks. Now, AI tools are stepping in to take on that workload and giving professionals more space for the higher-level thinking only people can do.
We’re still early in this shift, but the impact is already palpable. AI has moved beyond theory and into daily practice, and its role will only grow from here.
So where is AI making the biggest difference right now? Let’s break down seven areas that are reshaping how modern legal teams work, and what that means for the future of law.
Contract management is a whole other category of legal tech, and it’s one of the clearest examples of how AI adoption is reshaping legal work.
From drafting to approvals, signatures, and renewals, contract lifecycle management software now covers the entire process in ways that weren’t possible before.
According to research from the CMI Team, the global Contract Lifecycle Management Market is expected to record a CAGR of 12.33% between 2023 and 2032.
In 2022, the market size was valued at USD 1.11 billion, and by 2032, it’s projected to reach USD 3.69 billion. This rapid growth shows how central contract tools have become in modern legal practice.
With AI, legal teams can draft contracts using pre-approved clauses, automatically review terms for compliance, and route documents to the right people instantly.
What's more is that these tools can also track key dates like renewals and obligations, which gives both legal and business teams better visibility into ongoing commitments.
One of the leaders in this space is Aline, a platform that combines AI-powered drafting, approval workflows, reporting, and built-in e-signatures to simplify every stage of contract work.
Start your free trial with Aline today and experience smarter contract management.
Agentic AI is a type of legal AI that doesn’t just wait for you to give it instructions. It takes initiative.
If you’re not familiar, think of it as a digital assistant built on AI software that understands your rules and helps carry out tasks in the background. It’s one of the most evolving technologies in the legal profession, and it’s quickly becoming more than a simple trend.
What makes it useful to you? Time savings. Instead of spending hours on repetitive tasks, you can set guidelines and let the AI handle them while you focus on client strategy, negotiations, or building your practice.
Here’s how you might use agentic AI in your own legal work:
Going line by line through contracts or case files can eat up hours, if not days. That’s why AI tools powered by machine learning are becoming a go-to form of legal assistance.
They help lawyers move through reviews faster, avoid common slip-ups, and understand the content with more clarity.
In fact, research from Thomson Reuters shows that 77% of legal professionals using AI rely on it for document review. That number alone highlights how central these tools have become. Basically, you can hand off the first pass to AI and step in where judgment matters more.
However, AI doesn’t just skim. It can spot risky clauses, flag inconsistencies, and even pull insights for a legal brief in minutes. It’s especially useful in contract analysis, where missing a single word could change obligations.
The payoff is obvious: significant time saved on routine tasks and fewer mistakes going unnoticed.
Drafting is one of the areas where generative artificial intelligence is changing daily work in law. With AI systems, lawyers can create memos, contracts, or letters more quickly by pulling from vast amounts of precedent and language.
Professor David Wilkins ’80, director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School, explained: “If you ask ChatGPT, or a more sophisticated version, to write a memo about a legal question, you’ll get something close to what a first-year law firm associate would produce.”
That doesn’t mean lawyers are cut out of the process. As Wilkins noted: “A lawyer still has to review it—just as a senior lawyer reviews the work of their juniors before sending it out.” This balance between generative AI and human judgment shows how both sides play an important role.
For large law firms, the benefits are clear. AI drafts the first version, and human lawyers refine it, which can make legal services more affordable and consistent. Across the legal system, this kind of support shortens turnaround times for routine drafting.
It’s why generative AI legal software is quickly becoming a trusted tool in modern legal drafting.
Research is one of the most time-consuming legal tasks, and it’s also an area where AI’s impact is easy to see. Traditional methods mean paging through relevant case law, statutes, and commentary, which can take days. With AI-powered tools, that same work can often be done in hours.
According to Thomson Reuters, 74% of lawyers using AI rely on it for legal research. That number shows just how common these legal research tools have become.
For many attorneys, it means they can now get to the heart of a matter faster, with fewer late nights spent combing through materials.
AI also organizes results, highlights relevant cases, and even shows how courts have applied similar arguments in the past. That’s invaluable when you’re preparing preliminary legal advice or running due diligence for a client.
And here’s the best part: all this doesn’t replace judgment. It gives you a sharper starting point. You still decide which arguments to use, but AI clears away the noise so you can focus on strategy.
Predictive analytics is changing how lawyers approach strategy. By studying past rulings and client data, AI can provide forecasts that once took weeks of manual review.
The strength lies in AI’s ability to crunch thousands of cases in seconds and surface patterns a person might never spot. Of course, those insights don’t stand on their own. Human oversight and legal expertise are what turn raw predictions into real strategy.
Here are a few practical ways predictive analytics is being applied:
What makes this unique is the partnership. AI delivers the data, lawyers apply context and experience. That mix allows legal teams to step into situations with more confidence and less guesswork.
Automation has been a buzzword in the legal field for years, but here’s the catch: automated doesn’t always mean optimized. You can set up a system to route contracts or approvals, but if the process itself is clunky, all you’ve done is make a flawed workflow move faster.
That’s where AI usage takes automation further by turning it into a transformative force in everyday legal workflows.
Take contract intake as an example. Without AI, you might have automated forms feeding into email approvals, but steps still get missed.
With AI in the loop, contracts are analyzed, routed to the right people, and flagged for missing data before they ever land on your desk.
Aline’s AI Workflows show this in practice. They automate intake, review, and approvals while giving legal teams control and visibility.
They even integrate with CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot, which makes it easier to handle agreements tied to sales or intellectual property matters.
For anyone working in practical law, the difference is that AI doesn’t just move tasks along. It improves them, cutting down on errors and saving time across the board.
Every time people talk about the AI revolution in the legal world, the question comes up: Will lawyers be replaced?
The short answer is no. AI can process legal data at scale, but it doesn’t replace the analytical skills, strategy, or personal touch that define good lawyering.
According to a Bloomberg Law survey, 72% of legal professionals strongly disagree that generative AI will replace lawyers.
That number speaks volumes. Lawyers bring qualities that machines can’t, like building trust, handling client counseling, and managing delicate negotiations.
That said, AI does raise issues that can’t be ignored. Ethical considerations around client confidentiality and data security are at the top of the list.
If an AI tool is handling sensitive contracts or litigation files, how do firms guarantee that information won’t be exposed? These risks extend into corporate governance, where accountability and transparency are central.
Another drawback is that AI still lacks nuance. It can draft, review, and summarize, but the gray areas of law require legal expertise and judgment that go beyond algorithms.
So, while AI will reshape workflows, lawyers remain indispensable. The real future lies in partnership with lawyers supported by smarter tools, not replaced by them.
AI is altering the legal industry in big ways, but the challenge is making those tools work in your day-to-day practice. Reading about automation, smarter research, or contract analytics is one thing. Using them seamlessly is another.
Aline brings those pieces together. From AI-assisted drafting and playbooks to automated approvals and reporting, it connects the dots across the contract lifecycle. Legal teams, sales, and operations all stay aligned while repetitive work gets handled in the background.
Why spend hours switching between tools or chasing down the latest version of a contract? With Aline, everything stays in one place, and you always know what’s next.
Plus, the AI isn’t trained on your data and uses advanced encryption methods to protect your sensitive information.
Try Aline for free today and experience faster contract management.
No. AI in law supports the practice of law but doesn’t replace it. Tools can review contracts, summarize documents, or analyze data, but they don’t provide the judgment and client relationships that lawyers bring.
AI is changing how large firms operate, but it’s less of a threat and more of a shift. The firms that adapt gain efficiency, while those that ignore it risk falling behind. Access to justice may actually improve as technology makes services more affordable.
The “best” depends on the task. Some tools focus on contract review, others on research, and others on case analytics. For law firms and businesses, the right choice is the one that integrates smoothly into daily work and supports lawyers without replacing them.
AI can handle repetitive work like document review, but roles tied to communication, organization, and judgment remain essential. Legal education programs are already preparing law students to work alongside these tools, and many state bar groups are guiding firms on ethical use.
Many law firms are testing AI for document review, research, and drafting. Some are also applying it in corporate governance or compliance work. The focus is on using AI to save time, reduce costs, and give lawyers more room for client counseling and complex analysis.
Brent is an attorney, a full-stack JavaScript engineer and the CEO of Aline.
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