As AI continues to advance and improve, it is beginning to have an effect on practicing attorney’s workflows. For law students and practicing graduates, it remains critical to continue familiarizing oneself with AI and its potential, while still being cautious of potential downfalls or missteps. Below, Shelly Mittal, co-chair of the Law Student Engagement Committee, writes about her experience utilizing AI in contract review and management processes. She approaches the subject from a practitioner’s perspective, highlighting both the strengths and pitfalls of using AI in legal practice. —David Husband, Co-Chair of LSEC
As an in-house commercial counsel, I’ve witnessed firsthand how artificial intelligence is transforming contract review and management. While AI won’t be replacing lawyers anytime soon, it’s becoming an invaluable tool for streamlining our workflow and enhancing efficiency in contract drafting and review.
AI-powered legal tools excel at generating first drafts of standard agreements. By analyzing thousands of existing contracts, these systems can quickly produce initial versions of NDAs, service agreements, and other routine documents. This capability can allow legal teams to redirect their time from repetitive drafting to more strategic work. Creating a basic vendor agreement from scratch, which previously took hours, can now be accomplished in minutes with AI-tools suggesting relevant clauses.
Contract review is another way that AI can truly help lawyers. The ability for AI tools to scan hundreds of pages in minutes, flagging either potential issues or missing elements, is transformational for generating efficiencies in the contract review cycle. AI excels at identifying standard clauses, comparing terms against playbooks, and ensuring compliance with company policies. This assistance is particularly valuable during due diligence or when reviewing large volumes of contracts.
However, it’s crucial to understand AI’s limitations. While excellent at pattern recognition and standard analysis, AI struggles with nuanced interpretation and context-dependent decision-making. For complex negotiations, where understanding business context and maintaining relationships is important, human expertise remains indispensable. AI cannot fully grasp the subtle implications of market conditions, or the strategic priorities that inform most contract negotiations.
For in-house counsels considering AI adoption, I’d say start small and scale gradually. Focus initially on using AI for standard contracts and basic review tasks. As your comfort with AI grows, you can think of expanding its use to more complex applications by combining it with human expertise. By embracing these tools while recognizing their limitations, teams can significantly enhance their efficiency and deliver better value to their clients.
