AI for legal documents in 2024: use cases, tools and more

Lawyers and legal professionals spend countless hours drafting, reviewing, and analyzing legal documents. However, manual processes make this work more difficult than it needs to be.

Fortunately, AI can transform the way businesses manage their legal documents. This article will cover exactly how your team can leverage AI for legal documents in 2024 - and how it can give you a competitive edge.

Can AI be used to manage legal documents?

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to manage legal documents. In fact, legal AI tools can automate repetitive tasks and process bodies of text in seconds. As a result, legal AI assistants serve as effective tools for lawyers who want to reduce admin work and free up time for higher-value tasks. 

In a climate where two thirds of GCs report feeling ‘buried in low-value work’, AI offers lean legal teams a competitive advantage in the form of increased productivity. With the right tools, they can manage their legal documents faster and more efficiently than ever before.  

Legal teams who successfully harness the power of generative AI will have a material competitive advantage over those who don’t - Daniel Glazer, London Office Managing Partner, Wilson Sonsini

Let's look at some of the best applications of AI for legal documents in 2024 in more detail now.

Best AI use cases for legal documents

1. AI legal document generation

Instead of spending hours manually drafting contracts, agreements, and other legal paperwork, lawyers can use AI contract tools to automate the process. 

AI-enabled tools use natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to generate entire legal documents in seconds. Legal teams can also ask an AI assistant to draft, or redraft, certain parts of the document. 

Below is an example of a prompt that Juro’s General Counsel, Michael Haynes, uses when drafting legal documents using Juro’s AI legal assistant: 

   Redraft this force majeure clause to exclude labour disputes involving the supplier’s own personnel, and to include COVID-19 and other pandemics.

AI Assistant can also help to improve the language you use in your legal documents and improve readability. For example, you can ask Juro’s AI Assistant to rewrite a clause to make it shorter and written in plain English. The AI will then generate a new version of that part of the legal document. 

Making your contracts more human doesn’t have to be difficult - by using AI, you can draft contracts that are easy to understand, and ultimately, easy to sign - Michael Haynes, General Counsel, Juro

Want to find out more about how you can use AI to draft and generate legal documents? Check out this guide to AI contract generation. 

2. AI legal document review 

Legal teams can also use AI to review their legal documents and identify any risks, inconsistencies, or deviations from their standard terms and provisions. 

For example, you could ask AI to summarize how each party’s liability is limited under the legal document. You could also use AI tools to flag any exclusivity obligations or restrictive covenants in a contract. 

Lawyers can also use ChatGPT for this task. However, they will need to make sure they:‍

1. ‍Anonymize the legal documents they submit in ChatGPT to protect personal and confidential data. This is important because some AI platforms use the data shared with them to train LLMs. You can find out more in this guide to AI risks. ‍
2. Submit their playbooks and guardrails each time they prompt ChatGPT to review a legal document. This can be repetitive and time-consuming, especially if you regularly use AI to review your documents. ‍
3. Manually amend the legal documents to reflect any changes made following the review stage. This can often mean jumping back and forth between ChatGPT and Word files to reflect the amendments. 

Due to the reasons listed above, AI contract review software is often a far better solution for lawyers who want to streamline the review process. Businesses that use Juro’s AI contract tool can: 

• Trust that their personal and confidential data remains private. Juro’s Zero-retention APIs and dedicated servers mean that none of your data is sent to train LLMs. As a result, lawyers don’t need to anonymize their legal documents when using Juro.

• Add contract playbooks and guardrails at a template level, rather than submitting them every time they use the tool. This streamlines the prompting process and eliminates the need for legal teams to manually enter this information each time. 

• Action edits to legal documents in real time. Juro is an end-to-end solution for contract management, which means that users can access Juro’s AI assistant in the same platform they create, negotiate, sign, store, and track their contracts. This removes friction throughout the contract process. 

Want to find out what sets Juro’s AI contract collaboration platform apart from other AI-enabled tools? Hit the button below for your personalized demo and find out how Juro enables teams to agree contracts up to 10x faster. 

3. AI legal document analysis

Legal AI tools are also capable of extracting and analyzing important data from legal documents. This is a great use case for legal teams that manage a lot of contracts and need fast access to the insights within them. 

Some AI platforms will even generate contract summaries and contract abstracts for legal documents, making it easy to cut through the jargon and share important takeaways with other stakeholders. 

How to choose AI for legal documents

AI can transform the way your business manages its legal documents, but only if you choose the right solution. That's why it's important to evaluate the tools properly to find one that's well aligned with your needs. You can do this in a few ways.

1. Start by understanding your requirements

Start by identifying your specific needs and pain points. Are you looking to streamline document generation, enhance document review, or improve document analysis?

Perhaps you want to do all three, meaning that AI contract management software will be better suited than a point solution. Knowing your goals will help you narrow down the options and select an AI tool that aligns best with your requirements.

2. Find out how easily you can customize the solution

Consider how flexible and customizable you need the AI solution to be. Legal documents can vary significantly, so the AI tool syou choose hould be able to accommodate various document types, formats, and language specifics. It's also worth looking for an AI platform that supports playbooks, like Juro. That way, you can customize the inputs at scale.

3. Consider how easily it can be integrated with other tools

Consider how well the AI solution integrates with your existing software and systems. It should seamlessly fit into your workflow, allowing for a smooth transition and collaboration with other team members.

4. Make security a non-negotiable

Legal documents often contain sensitive and confidential information. It's crucial that you choose an AI solution that places a strong emphasis on data security and compliance with legal and ethical standards. For more information, check out this guide to using AI responsibly.

It’s essential that you understand where your sensitive contract data is going before you feed it into a tool - Michael Haynes, General Counsel, Juro

5. Weigh up the risks and rewards

Consider carefully the risks of using AI, but also consider the risks of not using AI. Weigh them up and decide on a plan that works for you and your business.

It's important to remember that different businesses have different risk appetites. What works for one business won't work well for another. You need to have these discussions internally and weigh up the risks and rewards accordingly.

Which AI is best for legal documents in 2024?

Juro's AI enabled contract collaboration platform is secure and integrates seamlessly with your existing workflows, enabling you to agree contracts 10x faster than traditional tools.

This means faster routes to revenue and reduced costs throughout the contract lifecycle. To find out more about how Juro's legal AI assistant can streamline the way you manage legal documents, fill in the form below.