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Since our last survey in August 2024, AI adoption figures have stayed relatively flat. The percentage of lawyers using generative AI climbed from 41% to 46%, while lawyers intending to use AI dropping from 41% to 38%. The percentage of lawyers with no plans to adopt AI stayed exactly the same, at 15%.

84% of lawyers are either using or planning to use generative AI

Nick West, the Chief Strategy Officer at Mishcon de Reya, says there are a great number of repetitive tasks that lawyers do that can be partially or wholly automated.

The key drivers to using generative AI, according to the survey, are delivering work faster (71%), offering a better service to clients and stakeholders (49%), and having a competitive advantage (46%).

Three-quarters of lawyers say the top benefit of generative AI is working faster

Despite its exciting potential, Deborah Finkler, the Managing Partner at Slaughter and May, warned it will take work and investment to see the full benefits.

Our survey results agree with this statement. Nearly half of lawyers feel their firms are slow to act when implementing new technology.

Law firms and in-house teams have been relatively quick to evaluate, implement and integrate AI into their services, but lawyers are eager for their organisations to continue pushing for greater AI-powered innovation.  And faster.

Our survey found only 15% of lawyers said their firm or legal team is fast or very fast at implementing new technology, especially AI. Instead, nearing half (49%) believe their firm or legal team is slow or very slow.

49% said their firm or legal team is slow or very slow at implementing new technology

This was also the case when looking at responses from larger firms, where the number of respondents claiming their firm is fast or very fast at implementing new technology climbed to only 28%.

Responding to change and making use of data and analytics are also areas in need of greater innovation. Two-thirds (66%) of legal professionals said their organisation is adequate, slow or very slow at responding to change, while more than half (58%) said the same about data and analytics.

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The competitive risk at stake is already crystal clear. Mark Smith, Director of Strategic Markets at ½Û×ÓÊÓƵ, says: "We are already seeing firms tell us that they are both winning and losing work on the basis of their use of AI in their client-facing work."

When asked what would encourage lawyers to use AI more often, two-thirds (66%) said more training, while 50% said better communication around use guidelines. Other commonly expressed answers were a desire for further communication around how AI works (40%) and easier integration with existing workflows (38%).

Two-thirds (66%) of lawyers said they'd use AI more if they had training

Tony Randle, the Partner of Client Tech and Service Improvement at Shoosmiths, says encouraging people to adopt new technology or new ways of working can be challenging due to resistance to change and a lack of understanding of their benefits.

"It’s vital to provide comprehensive training and demonstrate practical, real-world advantages to gain user acceptance and trust."

Bhavisa Patel, Director of Legal Technology at Eversheds Sutherland, says adopting these tools is only the first step; ensuring their effective use to solve a real problem is crucial.

How firms are implementing AI

The top steps organisations have taken to implement AI include offering an AI-powered product to staff (32%), developing generative AI policies (25%) and training staff to use AI (19%).

A third of respondents said their organisation has launched an AI-powered product to staff

Ensuring AI adoption isn’t just about initial enthusiasm; it requires long-term leadership and reinforcement.

Finkler at Slaughter and May says they are interested in anything that has the potential to make their client services even better.

Santos from Bird and Bird says the focus for now should be on innovating the client experience, workflow optimisation, and drafting.

As technology evolves, the emphasis will likely shift toward better integration of tech solutions and more advanced AI applications, says Santos, such as AI agents, which are capable of autonomously taking actions within set parameters.

A General Counsel at an energy company says the biggest area of innovation that needs to take place is to the client experience.

Simmons & Simmons' Chief Operating Officer, Darren Mitchell, says firms need to be clear about what the purpose of AI tools are and then ensure that the usage is targeted accordingly to deliver the right outputs.

With nearly 90% of lawyers either using or planning to use AI, firms must move quickly beyond basic experimentation. The real differentiator will not be whether firms adopt AI, but how effectively they embed and measure it.

Failing to act on AI isn’t just a missed opportunity, it’s a serious business risk. Firms that lag behind won’t just lose efficiency. They’ll lose their workforce.

The data suggests we are at a tipping point. Legal professionals recognise the value of AI, but if they feel their firms are holding them back from working more efficiently, they may look elsewhere for opportunities. Firms that fail to invest in AI risk not only inefficiency but losing their workforce.

Some expressed concern over the impact that slow or no AI investment would have on their careers. More than a quarter (28%) said their career would be negatively impacted if their organisation failed to embrace AI, while 13% said they would consider leaving if their organisation failed to embrace AI.

13% of lawyers said they would consider leaving if their organisation didn't adequately invest in AI

This escalated at larger firms, with one third (36%) of lawyers saying it would negatively impact their career, and one in five (19%) saying they would consider leaving.

Hélder Santos, the Head of Legal Tech and Innovation at Bird and Bird, says:

It can also contribute to a healthier work-life balance, he believes, freeing up lawyers' time to enjoy their personal lives alongside their professional commitments.

The AI Lead at Linklaters, Laura Hodgson, says:

If the talent wars have shown law firms anything, it is that the younger generation of lawyers are just as hungry as previous generations for growth and career development, and they see AI is the catalyst to that growth.

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The top benefit of generative AI is increased efficiency, which has a far-reaching knock-on effect on most aspects of a law firm or legal department.

But attributing a precise metric to time saved, risk reduced, or the impact on employees can be a challenge.

Almost a third (29%) of respondents said their organisation is currently measuring for time savings, while one-fifth (19%) said they are measuring accuracy of outputs. Others are looking at employee feedback (17%) and cost savings (14%). Most (50%), however, said they aren't looking at any of the obvious metrics.

Half of lawyers say their organisation isn't using any of the obvious success metrics

"Law firms are yet to publish hard data on the level of efficiency gained through using new AI tools because getting tools to a point of adoption where real value can be measured has been a challenge," says Hodgson from Linklaters

This would mean measuring efficiency, accuracy and reliability, data privacy, explainability and interpretability, risks of bias, quality of output, the ability to scale and the lawyer experience, all in real-time.

Only once these validation metrics are commonly applied, she explained, can we begin to see AI change common practices and adoption really take off.

Mitchell from Simmons & Simmons says the effectiveness of tools needs to be demonstrated through improvements to cost, quality and risk.

Randle from Shoosmiths says ultimately we need to gauge the effectiveness of our investment in AI by reference to improvements in client satisfaction and growing market share through increasing competitive advantage.

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The problem with time

An obvious metric is whether a tool can speed up work, says Finkler.

One of the benefits of this generation of AI is how versatile it is and how many use cases it enables, argues Smith from ½Û×ÓÊÓƵ.

The opportunities to create benefits from AI at the moment are huge, and the key point about measurement is to ensure the method and target of measurement support the use case and the underlying objectives, he says.

"To measure the effectiveness of AI tools, firms should focus on metrics such as accuracy, efficiency, and user satisfaction," says Santos from Bird and Bird.

However, Santos says we will soon see more focus on LLM evaluation metrics that help us to better understand AI performance.

Right now, however, the focus should be heavily weighted on adoption, says West at Mishcon de Reya.

As firms move from experimentation to deploying AI at scale, measurement becomes important not just to prove return on investment, but also to help fuel adoption and overcome change resistance, argues Smith.

"Client expectations, perceptions and demand will be a major driver of adoption. The drive for profitability and growth will also play a major part in accelerating use and adoption in both client-facing and non-client facing scenarios."

Unsurprisingly, many lawyers expressed concerns about the perceived risks of using AI. Hallucinations were the top concern (78%), followed by leaking confidential data (52%) and individuals becoming too reliant on AI (48%).

The end goal, however, shouldn't be 100% accuracy for everything, says West from Mishcon de Reya.

AI could assist junior lawyers or smaller, busy law firms in enhancing their work quality, potentially improving their market position.

However, Patel from Eversheds warns that if the output contains inaccuracies or the legal terms used are not specific or correctly used, it may increase legal risk and may require significant effort to refine and redraft.

Interestingly, almost three-quarters (71%) of respondents said they would be somewhat or completely confident using AI-powered tools grounded in legal content sources.

Almost three-quarters of UK lawyers would be more confident using AI tools grounded in legal content sources

Hodgson from Linklaters says:

Regular update meetings and transparent reporting on the progress and impact of new ideas are also crucial to mitigating risks, she says.

Finkler also highlighted that being risk-averse can be a barrier to innovation and adoption in itself.

"We ensure that the data principles and risk assessment tools we have in place are robust, to help us effectively manage risk," she says.

However, Finkler says her firm has established a culture in which they can fail fast and learn quickly.

Transparency with clients is also an important way to reduce risk. In-house lawyers expressed a strong demand to be informed if the external advisers who they are working with had used AI. Four-fifths (78%) of in-house teams expect to be informed, whilst only 62% of those in private practice think their clients want to be informed.

Four-fifths (78%) of in-house lawyers expect to be informed if AI is used by external counsel

Hodgson from Linklaters says: "Firms are going to have to work closely with clients to identify what makes their firm unique and where increasing automation will not impact established relationships and trust."