Legal Research Guide

Law and AI Detailed Guide

Explore the evolving intersection of law and AI with this detailed guide, covering key challenges, regulations, and real-world applications.

May 30, 2025

man with multiple documents - Law and AI
man with multiple documents - Law and AI
man with multiple documents - Law and AI

Legal research is a tough job. It can take hours to dig through case law and statutes, only to end up with a pile of notes and a looming deadline. The good news is that AI is here to help. In this guide, we’ll explore how AI can make your legal research and writing faster and easier. We’ll show you how to use AI tools to quickly find relevant cases, summarize complex information, and write clear, concise arguments .So, how to do legal research?

Meet Otio’s AI research and writing partner. It’s here to help you streamline your research process and get down to writing without wasting time. Ready to make legal research a breeze? Let’s get started.

Table Of Contents

Benefits of AI in Law

AI button - Law and AI

1. Revving Up Legal Processes

Time is money, especially in the legal world. Automating routine tasks with AI can save both time and cost for lawyers and their clients. By integrating AI into workflows, law firms can minimize errors and free up attorneys to focus on complex advisory roles. AI excels at handling large data sets, identifying key information, and spotting inconsistencies. This capability is invaluable for tasks like document review and legal research, where precision is crucial. It’s not just about speeding up processes. It’s also about reducing burnout and improving overall accuracy.

2. Understanding Risk and Compliance Like a Pro

Staying compliant and managing risk is a constant challenge in the legal field. AI tools can assist by monitoring regulatory changes and alerting legal teams when updates are made. This proactive approach allows legal professionals to adapt and make necessary adjustments quickly. Additionally, AI can analyze extensive datasets to uncover potential risks and provide guidance on how to mitigate them. This capability is advantageous during due diligence processes. By identifying risks early, AI can help save companies from costly legal issues down the line.

3. Quality Assurance Gets a High-Tech Boost

Legal documents require meticulous review to ensure accuracy and compliance. AI can assist in this process by summarizing relevant documents and identifying discrepancies or inaccuracies within them. It can quickly locate specific clauses, potential risks, or obligations associated with a company. This saves time and energy, allowing legal professionals to focus on more strategic tasks. The result is a more comprehensive and accurate analysis of legal documents, giving attorneys greater confidence in their work.

4. Boosting Organizational Efficiency

Legal research is a time-consuming task that AI can streamline. Specialized legal language models excel at identifying and analyzing relevant information from diverse sources, including articles, statutes, and case law. AI assists lawyers by identifying authoritative sources and ranking them according to relevance. It can also extract key information, provide document summaries, and compare documents based on specified criteria. By generating insights based on the information, AI enables legal professionals to make more informed decisions.

5. Strategic Decision-Making Gets a Hand

While human judgment and expertise remain essential in legal practices, AI can assist in strategic decision-making. By reviewing contracts and analyzing data trends, AI can help legal professionals make more informed choices. It can examine past case laws and outcomes to predict risks, compliance issues, and future results. This information can help legal professionals develop new strategies or refine existing ones to achieve better outcomes. AI also aids in managing outside counsel by identifying the best legal representation for a case based on past performance.

6. Reducing Workload and Stress

AI can alleviate the workload of in-house staff, ultimately reducing stress and increasing job satisfaction. By allowing AI to handle administrative tasks and offer support in drafting and document analysis, legal professionals can focus on higher-value duties. This not only boosts productivity but also contributes to a healthier work-life balance. By freeing up time and mental capacity, AI enables legal professionals to perform more effectively and retain talent for more extended periods.

7. Enhancing Client Service

When legal professionals are bogged down with routine tasks, client service can suffer. AI enables attorneys to focus more on strategic legal advising, improving service for both internal and external clients. With more time for human-specific activities, such as improving client response times and building trust, AI helps create a win-win situation for all parties. By equipping legal teams with more accurate information and enhanced legal research, AI helps build stronger cases and achieve better outcomes, ultimately making clients happier.

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How to Leverage AI in Law

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Streamline Legal Research with Otio

Otio offers a unified, AI-native workspace that simplifies the research process, designed to help you gather diverse information from bookmarks, tweets, books, and YouTube videos. Once you've collected these sources, Otio generates detailed AI-based notes and provides a source-grounded Q&A chat, making it easier to extract key insights. Need to draft a paper? Otio helps you create draft outputs from your gathered sources, accelerating the journey from research to writing. With its web scraping capabilities, Otio enables you to access a wide range of data sources beyond traditional academic papers and search engines. This feature allows you to curate and analyze data more effectively for research purposes. Try Otio for free and let it be your AI research and writing partner.

E-Discovery: Fast and Efficient

E-discovery, the simplest and most common form of AI in law, is the process of scanning electronic information to obtain non-privileged information relevant to a case or claim. This technology allows lawyers to scan documents using search terms or specific parameters, such as dates or geographic location. As a result, lawyers get almost instant responses, which is significantly faster than scanning hard copies. This extra time allows lawyers to discover more relevant information.

Legal Research: Speed and Precision

AI-powered legal research software allows legal professionals to quickly scan and search large databases, including regulations, statutes, practice areas, jurisdictions, case laws, and more. Conducting more comprehensive research at faster speeds saves lawyers time, which ultimately saves clients money. Tools that integrate with practice management software, such as Casetext and Fastcase, enable users to conduct and attach research directly to relevant case details, allowing for even greater efficiency.

Document Management and Automation

Using tagging and profiling functionality, AI-driven document management software stores and organizes legal files, including contracts, case files, notes, and emails. This method of storing and organizing digital files, combined with full-text search, makes documents much easier to find. Document management solutions also enable document ID and check-in/check-out privileges to maintain version control and security. Document automation enables law firms to create documents using intelligent templates. This allows legal professionals to automatically fill form fields directly from case records into the templates, thereby saving time and effort.

Due Diligence: Streamlined Document Review

Conducting due diligence often requires legal professionals to review a large number of documents, such as contracts. An AI-based due diligence solution can retrieve specific documents that are necessary for due diligence, such as those containing a particular clause. AI due diligence software can also spot variations or changes in documents. While we recommend still having a human review the data, lawyers can benefit from drastically reducing the manual effort of document review.

Litigation Analysis: In-Depth Precedent Review

Determining the viability of litigation or quantifying the value of a lawsuit requires extensive analysis of precedent-setting cases. Lawyer AI can quickly review those precedents and help lawyers draft more accurate and appropriate documents based on that data.

Use Cases of AI in Law

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AI-Powered Legal Research: ROSS Intelligence

ROSS Intelligence uses AI to streamline legal research. By employing natural language processing and machine learning, it swiftly scans legal databases, case law records, and statutory laws. The result is a more efficient method for finding relevant precedents and insights. A prime example is BakerHostetler, a global law firm, which reduced legal research time by 60%. This allowed attorneys to shift focus to client representation and litigation strategies.

Predictive Case Analytics: LexisNexis (Lex Machina)

Lex Machina enhances litigation strategies through predictive analytics for cases. It leverages big data and predictive modeling to analyze historical case data, judicial behavior, and attorney win rates. DLA Piper improved its litigation strategies by 35%, resulting in higher success rates and optimized client advisory services.

AI-Assisted Brief Analysis: Casetext (CARA AI)

CARA AI from Casetext offers AI-assisted brief analysis. By using NLP and legal AI algorithms, it compares legal briefs, judicial opinions, and case citations to suggest stronger arguments and precedents. WilmerHale, a top litigation firm, reported a 40% reduction in brief preparation time, enhancing case preparation accuracy.

AI-Powered E-Discovery: Relativity (RelativityOne AI)

RelativityOne AI revolutionizes e-discovery by automating document review with machine learning and data mining. It classifies relevant legal data, easing the burden of manual e-discovery and legal audits. Jones Day used RelativityOne AI to cut document review costs by 50% in a substantial antitrust case, streamlining compliance investigations.

AI-Driven Contract Analysis: Kira Systems

Kira Systems employs AI-driven contract analysis to extract key contract clauses and terms. This reduces legal review time and enhances risk assessment and compliance. Deloitte implemented Kira Systems, cutting contract review time by 80% and saving on legal expenses while minimizing human errors.

AI-Powered Contract Review: LawGeex

LawGeex facilitates AI-powered contract review through machine learning and NLP. It reviews NDAs, vendor agreements, and business contracts, flagging potential risks and ensuring compliance with corporate policies and procedures. LawGeex enabled eBay to process contracts 10 times faster, easing the workload of its legal team and boosting operational efficiency.

AI Legal Assistance for Consumers: DoNotPay

DoNotPay offers AI-powered legal assistance for consumers. By automating tasks such as disputing parking tickets and filing small claims it makes legal services more affordable and accessible. DoNotPay has helped consumers successfully appeal over $4 million in fines.

AI-Powered Due Diligence: Luminance

Luminance enhances due diligence with deep learning and data clustering. It analyzes thousands of legal documents to detect anomalies, risks, and compliance issues. Slaughter and May, a multinational law firm, saved 75% of due diligence time using Luminance AI, speeding up M&A transactions.

AI-Powered Document Automation: RAVN (iManage RAVN)

iManage RAVN automates document classification, retrieval, and summarization with machine learning and NLP. This simplifies legal workflows. Clifford Chance utilized iManage RAVN to reduce document search time by 65%, thereby enhancing efficiency in case preparation.

AI for Legal Compliance and Risk Management: JPMorgan Chase (COIN AI)

COIN AI from JPMorgan Chase uses NLP and automated risk analysis to review complex legal contracts. It identifies real-time risks, errors, and compliance gaps. COIN AI analyzed 12,000 contracts in seconds, reducing legal work that previously took 360,000 hours annually.

AI-Driven Regulatory Compliance: Bloomberg Law (AI-Powered Legal Insights)

Bloomberg Law provides AI-driven regulatory compliance through NLP and predictive analytics. It offers real-time updates on legislation changes, industry regulations, and compliance risks. This helped multinational corporations comply with evolving data privacy laws, reducing risk exposure.

AI-Powered Risk Assessment: Eigen Technologies

Eigen Technologies uses deep learning and pattern recognition for AI-powered risk assessment. It scans legal documents, regulatory filings, and compliance reports to flag risks and unusual contract terms. Financial institutions using Eigen improved their risk assessment efficiency by 45%, resulting in reduced regulatory penalties.

Risks of Using AI in Law

person reading a document - Law and AI

When AI Gets It Wrong: The Risks of Hallucination

AI tools can make up false information, known as "hallucinations." This is especially dangerous in legal contexts where fabricated cases or incorrect details can be used mistakenly. Always verify AI-generated content independently. For example, in the case of Roberto Mata v Avianca, a lawyer cited several made-up cases in court, relying on ChatGPT for research without verification. The court fined the lawyer for submitting misleading information.

In another incident, a Victorian mayor sued ChatGPT for falsely stating he was imprisoned for bribery. These cases show how AI inaccuracies can have significant legal consequences. ChatGPT now warns users about potential inaccuracies. As of now, ChatGPT's knowledge is limited to information available before September 2021, which increases the risk of outdated or incorrect legal advice.

The Fine Line: Confidentiality Risks with AI

AI can pose confidentiality risks because data input by users might end up in the public domain through other users' queries or system vulnerabilities. In March 2023, ChatGPT experienced a data breach that exposed user queries and other personal information, like email addresses. AI tools may violate non-disclosure agreements or client contracts that prohibit the use of AI. Lawyers should be cautious not to input confidential or sensitive data into AI systems.

Privacy Concerns: Handling Personal Data

As with confidentiality, lawyers must be careful not to input personal data into AI tools. Different jurisdictions have laws governing the use and disclosure of personal information, such as Australia's Privacy Act 1988. Lawyers using AI must be mindful of their obligations regarding the protection of personal data. AI products can also collect user data. For instance, ChatGPT's privacy policy states that it collects IP addresses, browser information, and user interactions. Importantly, ChatGPT may share users' personal information with third parties without their prior consent, which raises significant privacy concerns.

Beware of Copyright Traps: Intellectual Property Risks

AI tools rely on vast amounts of data, which may include copyrighted material. Currently, ChatGPT does not cite sources or explain its outputs, posing risks for legal practitioners using AI-generated content. Users might unknowingly violate copyright laws by relying on AI responses.

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Supercharge Your Researching Ability With Otio — Try Otio for Free Today

Research today can feel like a chaotic maze. You're juggling bookmarks, tweets, YouTube videos, and PDFs, each one demanding your attention. Otio steps in as your all-in-one AI workspace, turning this chaos into clarity. Why settle for piecing together fragmented tools when Otio lets you collect everything seamlessly? Whether you're pulling data from social media or academic sources, Otio organizes it all in one place. It's about efficiency without the headache.

Make the Most of Your Sources with AI Insights

Ever wish you had a personal assistant to summarize your research? Otio’s AI-generated notes do just that. It gives you the essence of your bookmarks, whether they're articles, videos, or PDFs. Plus, you can chat with your sources or entire knowledge bases. Imagine asking questions like you would with ChatGPT, but with your own curated data. This feature surpasses the capabilities of standard note-taking apps. It helps you understand and engage with the material on a deeper level.

Speed Up Your Writing Process with AI Assistance

Once you've gathered insights, the next step is writing. Otio helps you draft faster. Using AI, you can create outlines, draft sections, or even write whole essays. It’s like having a co-writer who never gets tired. So instead of staring at a blank screen, you’re building on solid research. This feature makes Otio invaluable for anyone who needs to produce written work quickly and efficiently.

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