AI Tools to Improve Legal Work Productivity

How I Use AI As In-House Counsel: New Product or Feature Have you ever been dropped into a meeting, no context, and when you show up there’s a new product and the only question to Legal is “Can we ship this?” I know. I’m sorry. Ideally, you’re involved in the action a bit sooner. But if not, AI might help to get through that new product feature analysis a little faster. Here’s a real prompt I use with my enterprise-grade Legal AI tool to accelerate product review. 📥 The Input -Upload Product Specs or User Flow 🧠 The Prompt "[Draft a brief context/summary of the product or feature] # Instructions 1. Analyze the attached [product specs] thoroughly. 2. Identify legal and regulatory issues across the following topics:  a. Privacy b. Intellectual Property c. Consumer Protection d. Third party platform policies e. [any other categories that you feel apply] f. Identify any unusual or industry-specific legal considerations that may not fit into standard categories above 3. For each identified issue, provide: a. Specific risk assessment and potential impact b. Recommended mitigation strategies c. Suggested policy or contractual language where applicable d. Priority level (High, Medium, Low) based on legal risk and business impact 4. Create a summary table with the following columns:  | Category | Issue | Risk Level | Recommended Action | Priority | 5. Support all legal assessments with direct references to the product specs including citations and exact quotes from the specs." I have my own instincts on legal risk, but this prompt helps when I’m starting from scratch, need a gut check, or just want to be sure I’m not missing anything. #AIforLawyers #LegalInnovation #InHouseCounsel

Legal Tech Review: Alexi *I was provided a subscription to this service for free* Doing a new series where I review legal tech products and provide my thoughts. First up is Alexi, a AI tool that generates legal memos and assists with identifying legal issues/arguments. On the legal memo side of the product, it was pretty user friendly. There is a prompt box that allows you to input a legal question. From there, you select your jurisdiction (state/federal). The AI tool will then reformat question to be a bit cleaner or what it thinks your actually asking and then it produces a legal memo on that issue. The memo is automatically sent to your email. On the arguments side of the product, equally as user friendly. Utilizing a similar question prompt system, you input your goals (think, defeating a motion to dismiss or lodging an argument to defend a demand). The product will then "brainstorm" and help you achieved the described goal. Pros: So, so, easy to use. Takes maybe 5 minutes total from question to legal memo. Cases that were provided to me were real in the memos that I have utilized (which is a crazy that I have to say is a pro lol). Memos are easy to understand and substance good enough bones to build upon in a motion or letter. Also, having them immediately sent to my email was great and allowed me to quickly disseminate the information to my team. The argument feature is cool and could be a helpful tool to bring arguments you didn't think about to the table. Cons: If you're actively litigating, you're likely still going to need a legal research tool. For me personally, I need the ability to search through individual cases and to sherardize those cases. At this time, I use the memo to help me further research into an issue, which does save me time. If you're not litigating (especially if you're in-house), it is likely good enough (especially if budget is a concern). The arguments function is really cool, but will likely need to further develop over time. Mostly surface level arguments. That said, it's more of a brainstorming tool so that's probably the point of the product.

I’ve been testing out various AI tools over the last few months, so I thought I’d share the three that I think are the most impressive.   * CoCounsel – this tool will literally answer legal questions for you and spit out a memo with case cites, etc. A senior associate I know recently spent 20-30 hours researching and writing a memo answering a specific legal question for a partner. She then put the same question into CoCounsel, and in less than 30 seconds, it spit out an answer that was basically identical to her researched conclusion. Obviously this tool isn’t always going to be correct, and you need to check its outputs. But it is highly valuable as a back-up to check someone’s legal work and/or it can be used for minor questions that may not be worth fully researching.   * ClearBrief – this tool helps streamline adding citations to legal documents (briefs, motions, etc.) and will also cite-check legal documents for you. Inside Microsoft Word, you can click on ClearBrief, and it will (among other things) use AI to check all of your cites using publicly available case law, statutes, and regulations. You can also upload deposition transcripts, court transcripts, and other court documents, and it will use AI to help you find citations in those documents.   * Jasper.ai – this is not a legal-specific tool. But I recently started using it to help me write a fiction novel, and it’s incredible. It’s basically a writing assistant tool that helps you craft emails, blog posts, SEO websites, etc. I think of it as a calculator for writing.   What are your favorite new AI (or other) productivity tools?