How Lawyers Can Use AI: 12 Practical Applications and Tools Worth Trying

Lawyers have good reasons to be skeptical of AI. Fabricated case citations and inaccurate legal research have made headlines, and the consequences can be serious. Lawyers can put AI to work without asking it to make legal judgments.

AI can help lawyers organize their calendars, review lengthy documents, edit briefs, and capture authorized client conversations. For tasks where accuracy matters, the most useful tools also make it possible to check the result against the original material.

12 ways lawyers can use AI (and the tools for each)

1. Meetings, dictation, and note-taking: Wispr Flow Notetaker

Wispr Flow addresses two everyday legal workflows: capturing spoken conversations with its AI Notetaker and drafting written content through voice dictation.

Using Wispr Flow Notetaker for legal conversations

Lawyers use AI notetakers to document client intake meetings, internal strategy discussions, and deposition preparation calls, provided recording and processing are authorized. For a closer look at these applications, see our guide to AI notetakers for lawyers.

Wispr generates an initial transcript and then refines it after the meeting using additional context, including names and terminology. It also identifies participants by name, rather than leaving every statement attributed to a generic speaker number.

Consider an intake meeting involving a client, a spouse, and an attorney. If the spouse supplies a detail about the timeline, the attorney needs to know who provided that information. Wispr identifies speakers by name, helping attorneys distinguish who provided each detail.

Wispr also keeps the transcript alongside the AI-generated summary. Attorneys can read the summary for the main points, then return to the transcript to check dates, statements, or decisions. For deposition work, Wispr is better suited to preparing for testimony and reviewing permitted supporting conversations than replacing an official deposition transcript.

Because Wispr records without adding a participant to the call, it also belongs among the best bot-free AI notetakers. The same approach supports transcribing in-person meetings, including authorized consultations where everyone is in the same room.

Dictate the work that follows

Wispr's other advantage is that its Notetaker comes alongside a general-purpose dictation tool.

After a meeting, an attorney can speak a follow-up email into Outlook, dictate internal notes, or draft the opening of a memorandum directly into a document. Wispr turns natural speech into written text, removing filler words and applying formatting. Our guide to dictation for lawyers explores how voice typing fits into everyday legal work.

Aditya P., an associate at LawSikho & SkillArbitrage, described using Wispr for meeting records, emails, and documentation in a five-star G2 review from October 2026.

His review also highlights how naturally dictation fits into his daily workflow, although he notes that recognition of unfamiliar words and technical terminology still needs improvement.

Spend less time typing and taking notes. Try Wispr Flow for free to capture conversations, review meeting summaries, and dictate your next draft.

2. Email and calendar productivity: Microsoft 365 Copilot

Recommended tool: Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft 365 Copilot summarizes lengthy Outlook threads, identifies unanswered questions, and prepares draft replies. It also assists attorneys with meeting preparation using relevant information from their Microsoft 365 environment.

Some practical applications include:

• Summarizing lengthy email exchanges before replying.
• Identifying unanswered questions in ongoing conversations.
• Drafting responses based on existing email threads.
• Preparing for meetings without manually reconstructing related correspondence.

When an email contains a settlement condition, contractual commitment, or significant deadline, attorneys should still check the original correspondence before acting.

3. Automating repetitive administrative tasks: Zapier

Recommended tool: Zapier

Someone submits an inquiry form. The information needs to reach the right person, a task needs to be created, and an acknowledgment may need to go out.

Zapier connects applications and automates workflows, including ones that use AI to classify or process information. A firm could set up an automation where a new website inquiry triggers an internal notification, generates a task, and sends a standard acknowledgment. Staff still handle conflict checks and representation decisions.

4. Reading and summarizing PDFs: Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant

Recommended tool: Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant

Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant lets lawyers ask questions about lengthy PDFs and navigate directly to the passages behind its answers.

An attorney reviewing a commercial agreement might ask where the document discusses termination rights or renewal conditions. Acrobat locates relevant passages so attorneys can examine the underlying language. Source links let attorneys verify answers against the original document.

5. Improving legal writing: BriefCatch

Recommended tool: BriefCatch

Legal writing has a reputation for unnecessary complexity, and the reputation isn't entirely undeserved. Long introductory phrases, unnecessary legalese, and sentences buried under qualifications can weaken an argument. Attorneys may recognize these problems when editing someone else's work but overlook them in their own drafts.

BriefCatch flags wordiness, unnecessary legalese, and other problems that routinely creep into legal briefs and memoranda. It also suggests improvements to clarity, word choice, and consistency. Its BriefCatch Next offering includes optional AI features, such as BriefChat, which offers writing guidance within Microsoft Word.

An attorney preparing a motion can use BriefCatch to identify wordy passages, tighten sentences, and make the argument easier to follow. The same editing assistance works for memoranda, client letters, and other documents where readability matters.

6. Legal research and case law: CoCounsel

Recommended tool: Thomson Reuters CoCounsel

A lawyer researching an unfamiliar legal issue needs more than a plausible explanation. The underlying authorities must exist, apply to the relevant jurisdiction, and support the proposition for which they're cited.

CoCounsel Legal connects AI-powered research and analysis with Thomson Reuters' legal resources, including Westlaw and Practical Law. Attorneys use it to research legal questions, compare authorities, and prepare research materials with citations to supporting sources.

For example, a commercial litigator researching how courts have interpreted a disputed contract provision can use CoCounsel to find relevant decisions and identify distinctions between them. The attorney can then inspect the cited authorities to verify which arguments they support.

7. Drafting and reviewing contracts: Spellbook

Recommended tool: Spellbook

Transactional lawyers can use Spellbook to draft clauses, review agreements, and prepare proposed redlines directly within Microsoft Word. Its AI analyzes contract language and suggests changes without requiring attorneys to leave the document they're working on.

Attorneys can examine those revisions within the full agreement, including how proposed changes affect other provisions and the client's negotiating position.

8. E-discovery and evidence review: Everlaw

Recommended tool: Everlaw

A discovery production with 100,000 documents presents an immediate problem: deciding where to begin.

Everlaw gives litigation teams tools for organizing, searching, reviewing, and analyzing evidence. Its AI capabilities include document summaries, review assistance, coding suggestions, and question-answering based on source material.

Finding important evidence in large collections

Consider a dispute involving several years of communications between a manufacturer and distributor. The litigation team needs to identify discussions about delayed shipments, changes to pricing, and complaints that preceded the dispute.

Everlaw identifies relevant documents and patterns across large evidence collections. Reviewers can then investigate the source materials, assess relevance and privilege, and determine what warrants further attention.

9. Client intake and lead qualification: Lawmatics

Recommended tool: Lawmatics

Lawmatics manages prospective-client information, automates intake communications, and follows up with inquiries before they go cold. Its QualifyAI feature is designed to help law firms qualify and prioritize incoming leads.

A personal injury firm, for example, might receive inquiries involving car accidents, workplace injuries, and matters outside its practice areas. Lawmatics collects initial client details and routes inquiries to the appropriate practice group before consultations are scheduled.

Firms can also automate:

• Initial inquiry acknowledgments.
• Intake questionnaires and reminders.
• Consultation scheduling.
• Follow-ups with prospective clients who haven't completed the intake process.

10. Generating routine legal documents: Gavel

Recommended tool: Gavel

Gavel automates legal document creation through templates and structured questionnaires. Users enter relevant information, and the software generates documents according to rules established in advance.

An estate planning attorney, for example, may regularly prepare documents requiring client names, relationships, beneficiary information, and selections among approved provisions. Rather than manually replacing those details throughout multiple templates, the firm can use a structured questionnaire to populate the documents.

11. Researching litigation trends: Lex Machina

Recommended tool: Lex Machina

Before filing a motion, wouldn't you want to know how similar motions have fared before the same judge?

Lex Machina analyzes historical litigation data, giving legal professionals insight into trends involving judges, courts, parties, and law firms. Attorneys use it to investigate questions such as:

• How have similar cases progressed in a particular court?
• What outcomes have followed certain types of motions?
• How frequently has opposing counsel litigated comparable disputes?
• What patterns appear in historical damages awards or case resolutions?

Patterns in past rulings can inform which arguments attorneys prioritize or how they prepare clients for hearings. A favorable historical record isn't a prediction of how a judge will rule on a particular motion.

12. Staying organized when priorities change: Motion

Recommended tool: Motion

Motion is an AI-powered scheduling and task-management platform that organizes work around deadlines, priorities, estimated task durations, and calendar availability.

Say a lawyer starts Monday with four hours reserved for drafting, a client consultation at noon, and several smaller tasks to finish. An urgent call comes in, the consultation runs late, and a colleague needs immediate help on another matter. Motion reorganizes the remaining tasks around the time that's still available, shifting drafting and research to open calendar slots.

It also flags tasks at risk of missing their deadlines. Motion should complement a firm's formal docketing system, rather than replace it; court deadlines and other legally significant dates need to remain under the firm's established controls.

How to choose which AI tools your law firm actually needs

Before adopting an AI tool, test it on a task your firm actually handles. Check the output for accuracy, note how much manual correction it needs, and compare the time spent against your existing process.

If your firm handles medical records, contracts, or deposition transcripts, test the software on representative, appropriately authorized materials rather than relying solely on the vendor's prepared examples.

What lawyers should know about using AI responsibly

The American Bar Association's Formal Opinion 512 explains how existing professional obligations apply to generative AI, including competency, confidentiality, supervision, and candor toward tribunals.

Lawyers should understand what information a product processes, who can access it, how it is stored, and whether using the tool is consistent with their firm's policies and applicable rules. Recording conversations raises additional consent, privilege, and procedural considerations. For more detailed discussion, see the ABA guidance and Clio's overview of legal AI issues.

Frequently asked questions about AI for lawyers

How can lawyers use AI in everyday practice?

Lawyers can use AI for meeting documentation, voice dictation, legal research, contract review, document analysis, writing assistance, client intake, scheduling, and administrative automation. The best applications depend on the firm's practice areas and existing workflows.

What is the best AI for lawyers?

There isn't one tool that covers every legal task equally well. CoCounsel specializes in legal research, Spellbook in contract drafting and review, and Everlaw in e-discovery. General-purpose tools such as Wispr Flow, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Motion can help with everyday productivity.

Can lawyers use AI to take notes during client meetings?

Yes, when recording and processing are permitted under applicable laws, professional obligations, client arrangements, and firm policy. AI notetakers produce transcripts and summaries, but attorneys should verify important details before relying on them.

Can AI help with deposition preparation?

AI supports deposition preparation by helping attorneys review permitted preparation conversations, search existing materials, and organize questions for examination. Official deposition recording, transcription, and evidentiary requirements must still be followed.

Is AI-generated legal writing reliable?

AI is useful for early drafts, editing, and document organization, but its output may contain mistakes or unsupported statements. Legal authorities, factual assertions, and substantive conclusions require appropriate attorney review.

Can AI help lawyers stay organized?

Yes. Motion schedules work around existing appointments and adapts when priorities change. Microsoft 365 Copilot assists with email and meeting preparation, while automation platforms reduce repetitive administrative work.

Is it ethical for lawyers to use AI?

AI use is not inherently unethical. Whether a particular use is appropriate depends on the lawyer's professional obligations, the task, the information involved, and the safeguards in place. The ABA's Formal Opinion 512 explains these responsibilities.

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