Legal Gen AI Image by Gerd Altmann from PixabayResearch by Thomson Reuters has revealed that lawyers perceive huge benefits in adopting AI tools. The Thomson Reuters 2024 Future of Professionals report revealed that UK lawyers believe they will save nearly three hours every week by adopting AI. The amount of time equates to £51,000 per lawyer, per year in terms of time saved through automation. The report is based on a survey of 1,200 UK-based legal professionals.

Interestingly, lawyers believe that AI will provide an increasing amount of automation over time. Three hours per week in the first year, rising to seven after three years and eleven years after five years. Each lawyer would, therefore, save around 1,500 hours over the next five years. Productivity gains could be huge.

Kriti Sharma, Chief Product Officer for Legal Tech at Thomson Reuters (image credit LinkedIn/Kriti Sharma)
Kriti Sharma, Chief Product Officer for Legal Tech at Thomson Reuters

Kriti Sharma, Chief Product Officer for Legal Tech at Thomson Reuters, commented, “It’s exciting to see law firms running AI pilot programmes and making long-term investments in the technology as trust around safe usage grows.

“With 102,000 lawyers working at UK law firms, three hours of time saved per week will help unlock potential for more creativity, strategic thinking and even better service. It also could translate to a significant boost to the UK economy.”

56% of UK lawyers say what excites them the most about AI-powered technologies is the value it will bring in time savings. Either by freeing up time (34%) or increasing efficiency and productivity (22%). 36% of UK lawyers say what excites them the most about AI is it will directly add value to work.

UK lawyers want AI more than others

Thomson Reuters indicates that UK lawyers are the most enthusiastic proponents of AI in their workplace. Though for this announcement, the firm revealed few statistics from other nations. The findings included:

  • 79% believe AI will have a high or transformational impact on the legal profession in the next five years.
  • 73% believe that AI will be a force for good.
  • Roughly 54% believe that over half of their work will involve AI-powered technology within the next five years.
  • 92% of UK Lawyers believe that it is ethical to use AI for drafting. This is much higher than other regions such as Canada (82%), the US (75%) and Latin America (78%).

Good news for Thomson Reuters

The findings are good news for Thomson Reuters, who have developed AI solutions for the legal profession and others over the last few years. The solutions have come together following a strategy of build, partner and buy. Last year it announced an additional investment of more than $100 million annually. It intends to use the cash to continue investing in responsible AI.

Thomson Reuters has made acquisitions such as Casetext in 2023. Which brought advanced AI and machine learning to build technology for legal professionals. Key products include CoCounsel, an AI legal assistant powered by GPT-4 that delivers document review, legal research memos, deposition preparation, and contract analysis in minutes. It has already published an expanded vision for CoCounsel to provide a GenAI assistant for every professional Thomson Reuters serves.

Last year, it announced a collaboration with Microsoft, introducing a plugin for Microsoft 365 Copilot. I also launched Westlaw Precision with AI-Assisted Research. The new GenAI interface has already delivered over 1.5 million responses to searches.

Other new AI-powered solutions include Practical Law Answers, CoCounsel Drafting (integrated with Microsoft 365), and Checkpoint Edge with CoCounsel, the first GenAI product for Tax Professionals.

Some of these solutions are now available outside the US, including CoCounsel Core (formerly Casetext CoCounsel) in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and Westlaw with CoCounsel in CanadaAustralia, and the United Kingdom.

In June, Thomson Reuters partnered with the National Center for State Courts AI Policy Consortium for Law and Courts to inform and educate the judiciary about the opportunities and challenges of evolving AI and generative AI solutions.

Thomson Reuters continues to invest in all aspects that will bring together AI solutions, including Gen AI, for the legal profession. The scale and size of the organisation means that it is able to bring teams of data scientists, engineers, designers, UX specialists and analysts to deliver solutions. The output also aligns with its recently updated Data and AI Ethics Principles. Thus ensuring that lawyers can trust that the solutions provided by the company are developed responsibly.

Enterprise Times: What does this mean

Thomson Reuters has a wide range of AI powered solutions that it hopes can sate the appetite of UK legal firms. There seems little doubt that legal professionals want and expect a lot from their AI solutions. Thomson Reuters is just one of the firms that is able to deliver it. However, its scale, with 26,000 employees, means that it should be able to develop and support new solutions in the future.

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