Law firms, brace yourselves. In Everlaw’s new survey of 300 U.S. in-house lawyers and legal staff, 86% say they now use generative AI for legal work, and more than half say it has already shrunk the pile they send to outside counsel. Another 44% expect to start trimming within a year. That leaves almost nobody still shipping everything out the door.
The billable hour looks shaky too. Eighty-one percent expect pricing by outcome to overtake it within five years, and 47% say three. Not everyone is starry-eyed, though. A third have already seen fake cases or fabricated evidence turn up in litigation, and 12% caught it coming from their own team. Oops. So keep the AI, keep a human checking the cites, and keep asking your firms where their AI savings went…
“In a key finding, 54% of respondents reported that, thanks to the capabilities and efficiencies of AI, they’ve already reduced the volume of work they’re sending to outside counsel. Another 44% said that they intended to start cutting back on outsourcing within the next year.”
Read: New Research: Concerns Aside, AI is Delivering Results for In-House Legal at Everlaw