Harnessing AI in Transactional Legal Work

By now, most attorneys are accustomed to the transformative potential of synthetic intelligence (AI). With practically three-quarters of a legislation agency’s hourly billable duties doubtlessly uncovered to automation by AI, there’s seemingly no restrict to the methods AI may be leveraged in fashionable legislation companies. 

However do the advantages of AI solely apply to sure sorts of authorized work?

Whereas a lot of the dialog on AI in legislation facilities round its influence on litigation, its position in reworking transactional authorized work is simply as vital. From contract drafting to due diligence and deal effectivity, AI helps attorneys full transactional authorized duties quicker and extra effectively. 

Let’s discover how AI is reworking transactional authorized work, how to decide on the best AI know-how to handle frequent ache factors, and the important thing advantages of integrating AI instruments into your transactional authorized workflows.

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Understanding the place AI suits into transactional authorized work

At its core, transactional authorized work is all about enterprise transactions—whether or not it’s mergers and acquisitions, contracts, actual property offers, or making certain regulatory compliance. These transactional authorized processes typically require time-consuming, detail-oriented duties that should be accomplished earlier than attorneys can use their experience to barter and advise purchasers successfully.

That is the place AI is available in. Many AI instruments can shortly analyze giant datasets, establish patterns, assess dangers, and automate duties, making them notably transformative for transactional authorized work.

By automating lots of the routine components of transactional authorized work, AI permits attorneys to give attention to high-level evaluation and strategic recommendation. For instance, AI can automate and help with duties like:

Reviewing and organizing closing paperwork
Drafting and reviewing buy agreements and contracts
Conducting authorized analysis
Analyzing and reviewing giant volumes of paperwork

Selecting the best AI know-how for transactional authorized work

Deciding on AI options for transactional authorized work goes past safety, moral concerns, and regulatory compliance—it’s about discovering AI instruments to resolve your agency’s most vital bottlenecks.

The secret is to establish essentially the most time-consuming and repetitive duties in your agency’s workflows and match them with AI-powered instruments that instantly resolve these ache factors. Contemplate the next steps for narrowing down the sorts of AI instruments you’re searching for:

Pinpoint your agency’s largest bottlenecks. First, you’ll wish to establish the precise transactional duties that gradual you down essentially the most. Contemplate: Do attorneys at your agency spend numerous hours reviewing contracts for inconsistencies? Is maintaining with due diligence doc overview taking on plenty of employees time? Or are sure administrative duties like organizing closing paperwork taking longer than you’d like? 
Decide which duties are automatable. Not each authorized activity is an efficient match for AI help or automation—however many transactional duties are. For instance, based on our newest Authorized Developments Report, duties associated to documenting and recording data (26%), getting data (21%), and analyzing knowledge or data (19%) are among the many most automatable within the authorized business. With this in thoughts, duties which are repetitive, data-heavy, and rule-based are probably one of the best candidates for AI.
Discover the best AI device to match. When you’ve recognized which duties are most automatable, the subsequent step is deciding on AI instruments that greatest align along with your agency’s must automate them. And, if you could find a device that solves that drawback whereas integrating it along with your present tech, you possibly can unlock additional effectivity positive aspects. For instance, Clio’s AI resolution, Clio Duo, is constructed into Clio’s follow administration software program.

High AI instruments for transactional authorized work

Contemplate the next frequent transactional authorized duties and AI options that may assist:

Massive paperwork overview and due diligence

AI-powered options like Logikcull (which integrates with Clio) and Everlaw assist attorneys streamline the overview and evaluation of enormous volumes of paperwork. These instruments can automate doc sorting, flag potential dangers, and extract key clauses—lowering the time spent on handbook overview. By leveraging AI instruments, attorneys can speed up authorized doc overview and due diligence and enhance accuracy.

Contract drafting and overview 

From contract drafting instruments that may generate contract templates and recommend clauses to instruments that may examine agreements or flag wording points, AI-driven options like Spellbook and Lexis+ Settlement Evaluation can assist streamline contract drafting and overview. 

Administrative assist

Managing doc group, scheduling, activity automation, and different repetitive administrative duties are time-consuming facets of transactional authorized work. Right here, AI-powered instruments like Clio Duo that sync with follow administration software program can assist streamline and automate these duties. 

Authorized analysis

Whereas they might not depend on authorized analysis as a lot as litigation attorneys, efficient authorized analysis is essential for transactional attorneys in lots of areas, resembling strengthening negotiating methods or staying up to date on rules and case legislation for making certain regulatory compliance for offers resembling in actual property or mergers and acquisitions. 

AI instruments for authorized analysis like Westlaw Edge, Bloomberg Regulation, or vLex can shortly and effectively analyze case legislation, statutes, rules, and extra to floor related authorized insights.

The advantages of utilizing AI to streamline transactional authorized work

Utilizing AI to streamline transactional authorized work presents a number of key advantages, together with:

Legal professionals can get extra performed—quicker. By automating time-consuming duties like doc overview, AI instruments enhance effectivity and save attorneys time. This could result in price financial savings, as sources may be higher allotted to higher-value work and billable hours.

AI-powered instruments like Clio Duo make discovering knowledge factors inside saved paperwork a lot quicker and extra environment friendly. “With Clio Duo, I can get the information I want immediately simply by asking a query. I don’t must run studies or filter by customized fields anymore, which saves me time and helps me be extra productive,” says Melissa Oosterhof, Legal professional at Oosterhof Regulation Workplace, PLLC.

Accuracy goes up, threat goes down. AI instruments decrease handbook human error, particularly when reviewing giant volumes of paperwork. With improved accuracy, attorneys are higher outfitted to identify potential dangers and inconsistencies, notably throughout doc overview and due diligence.
A aggressive benefit. Whereas rivals could also be slowed down with the burden of handbook duties, attorneys utilizing AI in transactional authorized work achieve a major benefit by saving time, lowering prices, and unlocking extra time to give attention to strategic duties like negotiation and utilizing authorized experience to ship higher outcomes for purchasers. 
Higher consumer relationships. By automating routine duties, attorneys can dedicate extra time to consumer interactions and delivering a greater consumer expertise. Plus, AI adoption aligns with the preferences of as we speak’s authorized purchasers, who more and more worth the usage of know-how to ship extra environment friendly and efficient authorized providers. Based on our newest Authorized Developments Report, practically half of all purchasers would favor to work with legislation companies that use AI, and, cumulatively, 70% of purchasers are both agnostic to the usage of AI or would favor to work with companies that use AI.

The way forward for AI in transactional authorized work

Because the influence of AI continues to develop within the authorized business, its position in transactional authorized work is more likely to broaden. With this in thoughts, legislation companies that wish to keep aggressive ought to take into account adopting AI instruments to streamline transactional authorized duties, enhance effectivity, and scale back prices—however that doesn’t imply companies ought to panic and begin implementing each AI device out there.

As an illustration, take into account the next greatest practices to arrange your agency for AI adoption in transactional work:

Make a plan. With many essential moral and authorized concerns to navigate when adopting AI instruments at your agency, it’s important to develop a complete legislation agency AI coverage—supported by a well-structured AI coverage template—to assist your agency reap the advantages of AI whereas mitigating dangers. 
Undertake AI instruments strategically. Assess areas the place your agency might most profit from automation and improved effectivity. Then, search for AI instruments that particularly tackle these challenges and seamlessly combine them into your present tech stack to make sure smoother implementation.
Begin small and scale. Start by specializing in the highest time-constraining duties at your agency and undertake AI instruments to assist with them first. Then, you possibly can introduce further AI instruments to handle different wants over time.
Prioritize safety. Defending your purchasers’ delicate data is essential, so make sure that any AI instruments you take into account are safe and adjust to business requirements for knowledge privateness, safety, and moral practices. 

Conclusion

AI is reworking the best way transactional authorized work will get performed. By automating lots of the time-consuming, repetitive duties that historically take up plenty of time for transactional attorneys, AI instruments enhance effectivity and permit a shift in focus towards extra strategic and higher-value work. 

As new AI instruments proceed to emerge, legislation companies that embrace AI instruments and combine them into their transactional authorized workflows can be higher outfitted to remain aggressive, enhance effectivity, and ship a greater expertise to purchasers.

Might AI rework the best way your legislation agency works for the higher? Study extra about how Clio Duo can automate routine duties and provide help to work smarter—and e-book a demo as we speak.

We revealed this weblog put up in February 2025. Final up to date: February 28, 2025.

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