Corporate clients push for AI adoption in law firms
updated on 25 April 2025
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Corporate clients are increasingly requiring law firms to use generative AI in their operations, according to recent research by Thomson Reuters. The study also highlights a significant rise in AI adoption within the legal sector, with the percentage of firms and in-house departments using AI jumping from 14% to 26% over the past year.
A substantial portion of this growth is driven by client demand. The research revealed that 59% of corporate law department respondents want their law firms to utilise AI, likely in hopes of reducing legal costs. In addition, 8% of clients are now specifying in their tender documents that law firms should use generative AI.
Law firms are also acknowledging the future of the technology, with 89% of firms seeing a use case for generative AI within their work. In addition, 33% of law firm respondents expect generative AI to become a central part of their organisation’s workflow in the next one to two years, while 30% anticipate this shift within the next year.
Despite the growing adoption, the report indicates that only 20% of organisations using generative AI are measuring its return on investment. Among those that do, 79% track internal cost savings, 64% monitor employee usage, 51% assess employee satisfaction and 38% evaluate client satisfaction.
According to the report, without tracking these metrics, “organisations may have a difficult time determining the value of generative AI that’s integrated into their work product, which is particularly true as organisations continue moving generative AI into direct client work”.
The report also identified potential risks associated with generative AI, particularly the threat of unauthorised practice of law by non-lawyers or the technology itself. However, only 15% of respondents from the legal industry saw generative AI as a “major threat” to their own roles.
The general manager at Thomson Reuters, Steve Assie, commented on the findings: "A consensus is building, and one we firmly believe, that GenAI is not going to replace lawyers, it is going to be used as a tool by them. A lawyer will still need to review and verify the output of any GenAI tool which is why the use of GenAI by untrained and unregulated members of the public to answer legal questions is seen as a risk.”
