O Gartner, Inc.. identifies the six main use cases for Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in legal departments, showing how technology can increase productivity, reduce risk and drive innovation in legal operations.
“GenAI – rooted in text analytics – is a technology well suited to reshape the legal department by automating routine tasks and providing insights deeper”, he says Weston Wicks, Senior Analyst Director of Gartner Assurance Practice. “The implications are significant, as Generative AI can enable legal departments to allocate resources more efficiently and focus more employee time on strategic initiatives.”
Gartner experts evaluated a total of 16 potential use cases for GenAI in legal departments, ranking them based on business value and feasibility. The six use cases with the highest business value and most feasible to implement and operate in a typical corporate legal department were:
Contract visibility/data extraction:
GenAI can revolutionize contract data management by identifying, extracting, and classifying terms and conditions from legacy and third-party contracts. This creates a searchable database, significantly increasing productivity for tasks such as post-signature management and contract execution. due diligence of mergers and acquisitions.
“Generative AI can reduce the administrative burden of manual data extraction, especially in highly regulated industries,” says Wicks. “However, unique and complex agreements may require additional training or custom AI models for optimal performance.”
Automated contract review:
GenAI can speed up the contract review process by identifying clauses that deviate from organizational standards and providing automated drafting. This reduces cycle time and legal review requirements, positively impacting company revenue and operational efficiency.
“While some solutions offer advanced features such as automated trading, legal oversight is still necessary for complex agreements to ensure consistency and reduce risk,” adds Wicks.
Summary of legal documents:
GenAI can condense complex legal texts into concise and coherent summaries, highlighting key points and essential insights. This increases team productivity by enabling rapid consumption of critical information, supporting informed decision-making. There are several AI-based summarization tools available, but human review remains essential to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the generated content.
Receipt and legal screening:
GenAI can revolutionize the intake process by quickly analyzing the details of written requests and automatically categorizing them based on type, region, risk level, and urgency. This automation prioritizes and routes requests to the appropriate legal resources, significantly increasing productivity.
“In some cases, GenAI can provide automated responses or document templates, allowing legal teams to focus on more complex tasks,” Wicks points out. “However, to achieve meaningful adoption, companies must invest in stakeholder outreach and change management.”
Transcribe and summarize meetings:
GenAI can convert spoken discussions in meetings into written transcripts and condense them into short summaries with key points and conclusions. This increases productivity by freeing up legal staff to focus on the essential elements of the discussion instead of taking notes. The technology saves time by automatically producing detailed summaries and, once trained, can be quickly implemented across departments or companies.
Contract risk analysis:
GenAI can map and score risks in contracts, providing proactive indicators for risk management. This use case increases productivity and consistency in negotiations by providing a risk percentage based on factors such as deviation from standard limits. Implementation requires collaboration with suppliers to refine risk scoring criteria and establish effective risk management practices. Companies should also develop their risk assessment capabilities to fully leverage this technology.
“Legal departments will have to embrace these technologies to remain competitive and efficient,” Wicks says. “This isn’t a technology that can simply replace people, but as its use becomes more prevalent, the ability to leverage it effectively for legal work will become table stakes for most legal employees.”
Gartner customers can read more at “Generative AI Use-Case Comparison for Legal Departments”. Non-customers can read “AI in the Legal Industry”.
About Gartner for Legal, Risk & Compliance Leaders
The Gartner for Legal, Risk and Compliance Leaders provides expert guidance and tools to help leaders in legal, risk, audit, and compliance departments more effectively manage an increasingly complex risk landscape and build next-generation functions. Additional information is available at gartner.com/en/audit-risk and gartner.com/en/legal-compliance. Follow the news and updates on LinkedIn and in X.
About Gartner
O Gartner, Inc. provides insights and actionable insights that drive smarter decisions and better performance for your business’ mission-critical priorities. To learn more, visit www.gartner.com.
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