How can a law firm use AI safely on client matters?

Which tasks eat a solicitor's day without appearing on the bill?

A solicitor's chargeable work is advice, drafting and advocacy. Around it sits a thick layer of work that clients rarely see and firms rarely recover in full. A new matter needs conflict checks, client due diligence under the anti-money-laundering rules, a matter opening form and a client care letter setting out scope, the person handling the matter, how complaints are dealt with and what the work is likely to cost. Every call, meeting and significant email then needs an attendance note or file note, written promptly and in enough detail to stand up later.

As the matter runs, clients expect updates and costs estimates need revisiting when the scope moves. Bundles need assembling. Documents need reviewing against a checklist. At the end, the file needs closing properly. Each step has a proper form in the firm's procedures, and each is written by hand by someone whose time is worth more elsewhere.

Why does legal work so often get recorded twice?

Because the note is written after the work, from memory, rather than taken from the work itself. A fee earner spends forty minutes on a call, then another fifteen writing the attendance note, then a further ten turning it into an email to the client confirming what was agreed. The same content exists three times, in three formats, written by the same person.

Matter opening repeats the pattern. The client fills in a form, the secretary types it into the case management system, the fee earner reuses it for the client care letter and the compliance team pulls it again for the AML file. When the client's details change, each copy has to be found and corrected.

Which processes should a law firm rebuild first?

• Attendance notes and file notes. Drafted from the call or meeting itself, in the firm's note format, with actions extracted and the follow-up letter drafted alongside. See file notes and case notes.
• Matter opening and client care letters. One intake populates the conflict search, the due diligence record, the risk assessment and a client care letter tailored to the matter type. Client onboarding explains how.
• First-pass document review. Leases, contracts and disclosure are read against the firm's own checklist, with issues listed and the relevant clause cited for the solicitor to confirm. See contract review and document review.
• Costs updates. Recorded time and the original estimate are compared as the matter runs, and a draft update is prepared for the fee earner when the two start to diverge.

Which one first depends on where your firm's hours go. The audit works that out from your own answers.

What must stay with the solicitor?

Everything that is legal advice or a regulated decision. The rebuilt process does not advise, does not decide whether a conflict exists, does not accept a client whose due diligence is incomplete and does not send anything to a client or to the other side on its own. The SRA holds solicitors and firms responsible for the service they provide, and that responsibility cannot be handed to software.

So control is designed in. Each draft shows its sources: the call, the precedent or the clause it relies on. Gaps are flagged rather than guessed. Suspicious activity concerns go only to the firm's nominated officer. And a named fee earner approves every letter, note and report before it is saved to the file or sent. Supervisors can see what was drafted and what was changed, which makes supervision of junior staff easier rather than harder.

What does a rebuilt process give back to fee earners?

Attendance notes that are complete and on the file the same day. Client care letters that go out before the work starts, not after. Trainees and paralegals who spend their time on the law instead of retyping. And partners who can see the state of a matter without reading every email in it.

To estimate what the current approach costs, multiply the weekly hours each fee earner spends on notes, letters and matter administration by the number of fee earners, your charge-out rate and 46 working weeks. The unbillable hours calculator does the sum.

How is one legal process rebuilt in 30 days?

We start by sitting with the fee earners, secretaries and compliance staff who run the process today, and mapping every form, precedent and check. The build uses the firm's own precedents, letters and case management system, and is tested on live matters. In week four the team is trained and it becomes the way that job is done, with 30 days of support after go-live.