A new survey by legal tech company Litera has found that the two top ‘potential use cases’ for genAI are document creation and proofreading, with contract analysis + review coming third.
The results are a bit surprising as making a document from scratch is probably not the best use case for genAI, given its ‘creative’ tendencies, while proofreading is also perhaps not the most useful way to leverage the very broad powers of genAI either.
But, third time’s a charm – and contract review, i.e. analysing legal language very deeply, including at a conceptual level, is right up genAI’s street – and there are now many legal tech tools that do this.
Other popular uses mentioned were: content surfacing, comparing meaning, and deal terms insights – all of which are probably better suited to genAI than making a document from scratch.
This site’s view, and others’, is that it’s better to start with your own template contract, which you’ve approved and checked, then modify it using genAI. That way you know you are on solid ground.
One could say that using genAI in conjunction with a range of other tech that can tap into your DMS may help to find you a good starting point, but that’s not quite the same as ‘doc creation’ in general.
However, these results are not that far from some of the info found by the latest ILTA survey.
Meanwhile the top worry was about accuracy, which makes sense. But, if your main worry is around accuracy then why would your top use case be creating a legal document from scratch with genAI?
Overall, this suggests that while some lawyers are far ahead of the curve on using genAI, many are not still, and there is much more education needed across the wider market. So, this research is very useful as it shows a true picture of where we are now and what needs to be addressed. Thanks to Litera for sharing.
Here is the link to the survey, which also covers several other key areas of tech adoption.
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Demographics: The survey had 162 respondents and targeted legal professionals, including Chief Legal Innovation Counsel, IT-MIS Professionals, Technology Information Systems experts at law firms, as well as Partners, Principals, Attorneys, Managing Counsel, and Counsel. Respondents were drawn from law firms across the US, EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa), and APAC (Asia-Pacific) regions.