5 Ways In-House Lawyers Can Use AI

Finance is using AI to detect anomalies. Sales is using AI to write emails. HR is using AI to screen resumes. But how legal uses AI looks different.

The value of AI for legal teams lies in its practical, behind-the-scenes improvements that free up time, reduce risk, and streamline operations. So, how can lawyers use AI?

Fortunately, AI for lawyers has matured well beyond legal research and clause generation. From request intake to matter summaries, purpose-built AI agents are now embedded across the legal function, making decisions, analyzing documents, and guiding business users with context-aware support.

Let’s explore five real-world ways lawyers are already using AI today.

1. Fix Legal Intake With AI-Powered Triage 

Most legal teams don’t realize it but they have an intake and triage problem. Requests come in from every direction: email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, web forms, and vary in quality, urgency, and completeness. Manually reviewing and routing each one wastes time and introduces risk.

AI-powered legal intake and triage tools solve this by acting as a front-line filter. With natural language processing (NLP), they can read incoming messages, identify the type of legal request, and route it to the right workflow or person. Some AI systems go further by asking follow-up questions or requesting supporting documents if the input is unclear.

For example, a business user uploads a vendor agreement with no explanation. Instead of someone in legal having to dig for context, the AI can scan the document, recognize it as a low-risk services agreement under a set threshold, and start the appropriate review process automatically.

2. Remove the Repetition From Legal Support With AI Assistants

Not every question needs a lawyer. But without a clear alternative, the business keeps asking legal anyway: “Can I use this contract template? Who signs this? Do we need review on this deal?” These repetitive, low-complexity questions slow down lawyers and clog up legal’s inbox. That’s where AI assistants come in.

Unlike public-facing chatbots, legal AI assistants are trained on internal policies, templates, and workflows. They go beyond providing answers to actually guiding users to the right resource, template, or next step based on how your legal function is set up.

The best AI legal assistants are grounded in real documents, processes, and guardrails. And when the request falls outside the rules, they escalate it to legal with all the context included, saving time for both sides.

3. Leverage AI Term Extraction For Faster Contract Review

Manually reviewing contracts for key terms like value, termination dates, or renewal clauses is both a time sink and a consistency risk. It’s also work AI can handle.

With term extraction, lawyers can upload a contract and have an AI agent pull out the relevant data points automatically. These terms can then trigger specific actions. For example, a contract above a certain value might route for higher-level approval, while a missing clause might flag the agreement for legal review.

More advanced setups allow business users to upload documents directly into a chat interface. Some AI chatbots such as Checkbox’s legal AI agent reviews the content in real time, understands what kind of matter it relates to, and starts the right workflow, without anyone in legal having to get involved upfront.

4. Start Self-Service Workflows With Generative AI

Legal teams want to enable the business, but not at the expense of control. That’s where AI-powered self-service tools prove to be useful.

Instead of sending PDFs or forms, legal can offer guided, AI-enhanced workflows that walk users through common processes like NDAs, marketing reviews, or conflict disclosures. With generative AI embedded into your legal work management platform, users don’t need to know what to ask or which workflow to choose. They can describe their request in plain language, upload relevant files, and the AI handles the rest, surfacing the right process, document, or escalation path.

Behind the scenes, policy logic and approval thresholds act as guardrails. The AI can generate draft language, apply template variations, and make decisions based on what’s in the uploaded file, without exposing the business to unnecessary risk.

5. Get Up to Speed With AI-Generated Matter Summaries

After a matter is closed, documenting what happened (i.e. who was involved, what the issue was, what decisions were made) is often an afterthought. But without that record, legal loses visibility, and so does the business.

Now, AI-powered matter management software such as Checkbox can generate matter summaries automatically. Based on the intake, communication, and documents involved, AI agents can produce a clean, standardized summary that captures the essentials. This removes the need for lawyers to write manual notes or chase people down for context.

This is especially valuable for fast-paced or high-volume legal teams that don’t have time to write case notes. It ensures that every matter leaves behind a usable trail: searchable, auditable, and shareable with stakeholders.

Key Takeaways

AI is already helping legal teams reduce busywork, respond faster, and stay in control. It handles intake by reading and routing requests, answers repetitive questions through intelligent assistants, and extracts key terms from contracts to trigger workflows. Teams are also using AI to guide business users through self-service tools and to generate automatic matter summaries for better reporting.

Ultimately, AI is helping legal teams save time, reduce risk, and scale their support across the business.

Want to see how this could work for your team? Book a demo to explore AI-powered legal workflows in action.