Legal research is something you can’t avoid, no matter how much expertise you may have. Cases are frequently overturned and if you’re relying on the outcome of a particular case to support your client’s position, you may not even be aware of the changes.

You can hire a paralegal to perform some of your legal research to save time, and that’s a good solution. However, it’s not the only tool you have at your disposal. You also have technology – specifically, artificial intelligence (AI). If your law firm isn’t already taking advantage of AI-powered tools, at least for legal research, here’s why it should be a top priority.

1. AI makes legal research speedy

Your time is valuable, and the more time you spend on non-billable tasks, like legal research into routine issues, the less money you make. However, you can’t just skip legal research. No matter how mundane a task might be, it’s a necessary part of your job.

The solution is to use technology powered by AI. For instance, Legal AI is transforming the way law firms perform legal research and other work. It’s a powerful GPT tool that can automate a variety of otherwise time-consuming tasks to increase efficiency. For example, it will help your firm do all of the following:

·  Quickly draft outlines for depositions

·  Use the AI engine to search for information in your own documents, databases, and contracts, or use the systems’ built-in repository of more than 600,000 documents.

·  Extract relevant clauses from existing contracts to use in a new contract

·  Find out if specific cases still apply or have been overturned

·  Ask the system questions about one of your cases and have the AI draft your brief, clause, or research memo

·  Generate an accurate summary of complex opinions

Automating any number of these tasks will significantly increase your firm’s efficiency and ability to manage heavy workloads.

2. AI is great at answering questions

Good questions lay the foundation of good legal research. If you know what to ask, you have a better chance of getting the information you’re after. AI can provide solid answers to just about any legal question, provided you’re using the right application.

3. AI can help you find relevant cases

Looking for relevant cases requires scanning multiple large databases. This is time-consuming to do manually and because it’s not easy, many attorneys fail to find relevant cases to cite. AI can help you find the relevant cases needed to make your arguments nearly instantly.

4. AI can help you become a better attorney

In addition to helping you perform the mechanical tasks of legal research, AI can help you become a better attorney over time. The more you research, the more you learn. Once you have AI helping you filter data, you’ll start to learn where you can find similar information and you’ll get better at research. As you sift through the data, you’ll also learn more. You’ll get all the important information without having to do the legwork. It’s not cheating – it’s smart.

5. AI can convert messy data into charts

One of the biggest benefits of AI is being able to feed the system a bunch of disorganized data and have it provide you with charts and graphs to make sense of all that data. Once you collect a bunch of data using AI, organizing and analyzing that data manually will be a daunting task. AI will turn your collection of data into useful information.

6. AI can manage citations

Citations are crucial to keep track of, but that’s not an easy manual task. With AI, you can gather citations and keep them organized so you never lose that crucial data.

There is a downside to using AI for legal research

Although there are plenty of benefits, the one downside is that AI isn’t always 100% accurate. It’s crucial to double-check your findings if you use AI for legal research. Always verify the sources you’re given. AI will do most of the initial work, but you’re still on the hook to ensure accuracy.

AI makes legal research more efficient

Whatever you need to accomplish with your legal research, AI can help you get it done faster and more effectively in a shorter period of time. There are still instances where you’ll need to perform manual research and create content with specific case details, but with AI powering many of your tasks, your firm will be faster, more efficient, and ultimately more profitable.