Emerging Legal Technology: How Clio Is Shaping the Future of Law

8 minutes learn

Up to date Dec 4, 2025

What’s rising authorized expertise—and why it issues now

Rising authorized expertise refers to new instruments (e.g., AI, automation, and authorized analytics) that improve how authorized professionals handle, analyze, and ship authorized companies. These applied sciences resolve most of the challenges legal professionals face right this moment: time-consuming administrative work, rising shopper expectations, growing competitors, and rising strain to supply sooner, higher-quality outcomes.

However expertise adoption in legislation isn’t occurring in a vacuum. It’s being partly pushed by purchasers themselves, who’re more and more open to—and even count on—legislation companies to make use of AI of their workflows. Attorneys are embracing these instruments not only for the efficiencies they convey, however to satisfy these evolving shopper expectations. Latest analysis from Clio exhibits that 70% of purchasers are impartial or desire that their lawyer use AI, with robust assist throughout generations: 81% of Gen Z, 75% of Millennials, 68% of Gen X, and 59% of Boomers.

This shopper demand is matched by fast adoption inside the occupation itself. Based on the 2025 Authorized Developments Report, 78% of legal professionals now use AI instruments, greater than different professions measured by McKinsey’s The State of AI survey. This widespread adoption displays the broader actuality that AI is not a novelty. For contemporary authorized observe, it’s a necessity. 

Clio anticipated this shift early, embedding AI instantly into its observe administration workflows, and continues to guide the cost because the authorized business evolves. 

Advantages of rising authorized expertise 

As authorized work turns into extra advanced and shopper expectations proceed to rise, companies are more and more turning to rising authorized expertise to maintain tempo. These instruments aren’t simply fashionable conveniences, they ship clear, measurable enhancements in effectivity, shopper service, and lawyer well-being. Critically, they achieve this for companies of each dimension. 

Elevated effectivity and productiveness

Rising authorized expertise automates time-consuming administrative duties like doc creation, reviewing paperwork, and calendar administration. This automation frees legal professionals to give attention to substantive authorized work that requires experience and judgment.

Effectivity positive factors manifest in a different way throughout agency sizes:

Solo practitioners can offload tedious enterprise and shopper improvement duties and focus extra on serving these precise purchasers.
Small companies can exchange disjointed instruments and collaborate extra successfully by means of a unified system.
Mid-sized companies can scale their operations effectively, enhancing visibility and lowering threat by enhancing perception into worker work product.

Throughout the board, companies are in a position to deal with extra issues, streamline workflows, and scale back operational bottlenecks. 

Elevated productiveness can also be paired with improved accuracy when utilizing rising authorized expertise. The 2025 Authorized Developments Report discovered that legal professionals utilizing AI instruments to finish duties had been 129% extra correct than these utilizing conventional software program. Attorneys utilizing AI reported seeing a discount in tedious work (62%), elevated accuracy of their work (58%), and feeling empowered to deal with advanced work (53%).

Enhanced shopper service

Purchasers right this moment count on responsiveness, transparency, and fashionable communication. Authorized expertise delivers on these expectations by means of options like automated shopper updates, safe on-line portals, streamlined consumption processes, and sooner turnaround instances. When purchasers can observe matter standing in actual time or obtain proactive updates, satisfaction will increase, and so does belief. Rising legislation companies acknowledge this shift in shopper expectations and are 58% extra more likely to take into account shopper expertise when buying new expertise. 

Improved lawyer well-being

Importantly, rising authorized expertise addresses one of many occupation’s most persistent challenges: burnout. By lowering cognitive load and eliminating repetitive work, it helps legal professionals higher handle their workload and reclaim significant time of their day.

The 2025 Authorized Developments Report discovered that authorized expertise can scale back general cognitive load, throughout emotional pressure, reminiscence demand, energetic focus, and visible effort, by as much as 25%. This discount interprets into measurable enhancements in productiveness, stress ranges, and general high quality of life.

How Clio’s Clever Authorized Work Platform is redefining the business 

Constructing on years of innovation and deep business experience, Clio has taken one other main leap ahead with the launch of its Clever Authorized Work Platform, a linked ecosystem that brings collectively the enterprise and observe of legislation, all powered by embedded AI.

Designed for companies of each dimension, Clio’s platform empowers legal professionals to do their greatest work, streamline operations, and ship larger worth to purchasers. From solo practitioners to small and mid-sized companies to massive enterprises, the Clever Authorized Work Platform makes superior AI accessible to all. The platform combines the context of your observe and your issues with AI, enabling it to know your work and ship related outcomes you possibly can belief.

Clio is uniquely positioned to convey this imaginative and prescient to life. After years of securely managing authorized workflows for lots of of 1000’s of authorized professionals, Clio has skilled perception into how legal professionals really work. This expertise kinds the muse for constructing AI techniques that aren’t solely highly effective, but in addition moral and reliable.

This expertise is now mixed with an enormous, constantly-updated authorized library spanning over a billion paperwork of case legislation, statutes and rules, treatises, courtroom docket entries, procedural courtroom guidelines, and extra.

The result’s a shift from a standard system of report (the place software program merely shops data) to a system of motion that actively helps legal professionals advance their work.

From a “system of report” to a “system of motion”

Conventional authorized software program has operated as a “system of report”, primarily a digital submitting cupboard that shops data however requires legal professionals to do all of the pondering and appearing. Clio’s Clever Authorized Work Platform represents a shift to a “system of motion,” the place expertise doesn’t simply retailer knowledge however actively helps advance your work.

Right here’s what this shift means in observe:

Earlier than (system of report): Software program saved knowledge, tracked duties, and arranged paperwork. The lawyer nonetheless needed to provoke each subsequent step.
After (system of motion): The platform identifies the following step, drafts the primary model of recommended paperwork, surfaces key insights, and strikes work ahead. This, in flip, reduces the variety of gadgets to memorize, clicks, and guide duties required.

This transition transforms authorized software program from a passive software into an energetic accomplice in your observe—one which anticipates wants, suggests actions, and handles routine duties so you possibly can give attention to the work that requires your experience.

Constructed for companies of each dimension 

Clio’s Clever Authorized Work Platform is greater than only a assortment of instruments, it’s a unified, AI-powered working system designed for the trendy authorized observe. Constructed to assist companies at each stage of progress, the platform adapts to completely different workforce constructions and observe fashions, whereas giving each lawyer entry to a strong, dependable, and safe AI basis.

For solo practitioners and small to mid-sized companies

The Clever Authorized Work Platform comes collectively by means of 4 core merchandise:

Clio Handle, which streamlines day-to-day observe administration and automates routine workflows.
Clio Develop, which handles consumption and shopper relationship administration.
Clio Draft, which accelerates doc creation by means of AI-assisted drafting and meeting.
Clio Work, an clever authorized workspace that delivers vital analysis, insights, and evaluation.

Collectively, they type a seamlessly linked system that helps the complete lifecycle of authorized work, from the primary shopper inquiry by means of matter completion. 

AI embedded at each stage

Constructing on this basis, three specialised AI capabilities—Handle AI, Draft AI, and Develop AI (coming quickly)—prolong the platform’s intelligence throughout each a part of a legislation agency:

Handle AI runs the operational aspect of the agency, turning routine duties into accomplished work with accuracy and velocity. Court docket paperwork turn into calendar occasions, matter exercise turns into high-quality shopper updates, and time and expense entries turn into payment-ready payments.
Draft AI powers doc manufacturing at scale, producing correct first drafts, creating templates and questionnaires for essential, lacking knowledge, and assembling full doc units in minutes.
Develop AI drives shopper improvement, accelerating consumption and conversion so no alternative is missed. All lead data is captured upfront, immediately screened for suitability, and excellent gadgets are adopted up routinely.

Every of those AI-driven capabilities connects the enterprise and observe of legislation in a significant means, serving to companies work smarter, scale sooner, and ship higher shopper service.

For giant legislation companies and enterprises

For enterprise companies with extra advanced wants, Clio for Enterprise delivers best-in-class options constructed particularly for scale, complexity, and safety. From authorized AI to adaptive case administration, every answer is designed to assist massive legislation companies and company authorized departments function effectively and confidently whereas sustaining the governance and oversight they require.

For greater than a decade, Clio has been redefining what accessible innovation appears to be like like within the authorized business. The Clever Authorized Work Platform highlights its continued position as a frontrunner in making state-of-the-art instruments accessible to companies of all sizes.

The way forward for legislation is clever, linked, and constructed for you

The fast rise of AI and rising authorized expertise is reshaping the authorized occupation at massive. But essentially the most profitable legislation companies are these utilizing these instruments to enhance their work, not exchange it. Clio’s Clever Authorized Work Platform displays this shift. By shifting from a system of report right into a system of motion, Clio empowers legal professionals to work extra effectively and supply higher shopper service by automating time-consuming administrative duties that sluggish them down and relieving their cognitive load.

As competitors grows and shopper expectations proceed to rise, legal professionals want expertise that understands their workflows, anticipates subsequent steps, and drives issues ahead. Clio’s specialised AI capabilities—Handle AI, Draft AI, and Develop AI—are constructed to do exactly that. With these instruments, legal professionals at companies of each dimension can work smarter and ship stronger outcomes for his or her purchasers.

The way forward for authorized observe isn’t nearly adopting authorized expertise, it’s about adopting the precise authorized expertise. With Clio’s Clever Authorized Work Platform, companies can confidently embrace innovation and keep forward in a fast-moving and ever-evolving business.