Legal Departments Look to do More with Less – How will AI Transform Legal Operations?
AI is changing the world of legal operations as was apparent at Corporate Legal Operations Consortium’s (CLOC) annual meeting in May 2025. AI stole the showroom and stage as the leading topic of conversation among vendors, legal operations teams, and presenters. With the consistent flow of new AI tools and innovation in the legal operations space, legal professionals are asked to evaluate and increase efficiency to reduce legal spend with resources that span automated contract drafting/review, AI generated playbooks, predictive analytics, discovery, document management, and beyond.
Adopting AI, or any new technology, requires time, thought, and a clear roadmap. While new tools can create greater efficiency, the priority should always be to clean up existing processes and databases before adopting new tools. An easy to remember check list that was shared by a group at CLOC can act as a practical roadmap:
- Identify the problem
- Identify workable solutions to the problem - Is it best addressed by AI? If so, explore it.
- Test user cases
- Evaluate the ROI
- When discussing the use of new technology at the executive level, use the ROI to show value and bolster the adoption of that technology
The common thread of conversation heard in the showroom and presentation halls was how genAI will continue to transform the day-to-day work of legal operations professionals. In response to this question, a few COOs emphasized that the primary role of legal operations has been and will remain to be business management. The important, but secondary responsibility, is to evaluate tech advancements (e.g. through the adoption or use of resources like legal data scientists) while ensuring a grounded approach to the rapid growth in technology, and a willingness to change course when it serves the business. Flexibility is the new stability.
Through strategic adoption, process optimization, and staying adaptable in this rapidly evolving space, genAI tools can continue to reshape legal operations. By combining business management focus with a willingness to adapt, legal teams can drive meaningful change and avoid over indexing on new technology.