Techsommet Events

AI in legal frameworks: How In-house teams are rewriting their workflows for efficiency

AI isn’t just a buzzword anymore. It’s reshaping how legal departments operate, particularly within corporate and inhouse teams. Instead of relying solely on digital tools like shared drives or static templates, forward thinking legal teams are embedding AI into their workflows to save time, reduce risk and focus human expertise on justice. This shift isn’t just evolutionary, it’s transformative and the numbers back it up.

In-house legal teams are adopting AI at a pace few anticipated just a few years ago. Around 72% of in-house legal professionals currently use AI tools in their work, outpacing many traditional law firm counterparts as they seek greater speed and accuracy in high-volume tasks. This trend reflects a broader wave of legal tech investment which is about 84% of legal professionals either using or planning AI adoption by 2025. A dramatic shift from just a few years ago when AI was considered experimental. 

One of AI’s biggest impacts is on contract review and management, historically one of the most time consuming activities in legal workflows. In-house teams often deal with hundreds and thousands of contracts annually. According to recent surveys, AI integration for contract reviews has grown by roughly 75% year with nearly two-thirds of legal departments exploring AI solutions to handle extensive workload more efficiently. By automating routine contract analysis and risk flagging, teams can dramatically reduce turnaround times and allocate human expertise to negotiate and form strategies. 

Beyond contracts, AI speeds up other core legal functions as legal research, document summarization and compliance monitoring. More than 60% of legal professionals report using AI for these tasks and many teams say they save significant time; freeing up weeks of work hours that would have been spent manually sifting through statutes, case law and internal documents. These efficiencies aren’t just anecdotes, they translate into measurable business

value. For instance, Forrester commissioned study found that corporate legal departments deploying advanced AI platforms like Lexis+ AI achieved a 284% return on investment over 3 years with technology paying for itself in under six months and generating over $1.2 million in cost savings and benefits. 

AI isn’t replacing lawyers, it’s augmenting and assisting them. Instead of lawyers acting as data processors or document revisors, AI handles repetitive pattern based tasks while lawyers apply judgment, strategy and expertise to do real case work. In-house legal teams are evolving into true business partners advising on risk, strategy, compliance and corporate governance. A staggering 96% of In house legal professionals expect AI to be integrated into their departments within the next five years and 86% already report improved efficiency where AI is used currently. 

This shift has also driven cultural and workflow changes. Departments are rethinking about traditional linear processes where work is passed task by task and are considering integrating AI into daily operations. This means embedding AI into contract lifecycle management systems, legal research platforms, compliance dashboards and risk scanning tools so that insights are delivered at the point of need rather than as after-the-fact reports. 

The adoption of AI legal functions requires governance,quality control and ethical guardrails. Legal teams must ensure outputs are accurate, compliant and secure especially given the sensitivity of legal work. But when implemented thoughtfully, AI becomes a force multiplier, turning in-house legal from a cost center into a strategic engine of operational efficiency. 

In today’s competitive business environment, the legal departments that embrace AI intelligently with governance, training and integration end up redefining their workflows for speed, accuracy and impact. The future belongs to legal teams that don’t just digitize; They AI-power their work. 

Scroll to Top