The Legal Industry’s AI Paradox: More Efficiency, More Work

As artificial intelligence (AI) increases productivity across the legal sector, it hasn’t reduced workloads for most legal professionals, writes Richard Tromans of Artificial Lawyer. Despite AI-driven productivity gains, most legal professionals work the same hours or longer. The legal industry’s AI paradox is that the more workers use AI, the more work they end up doing.

According to an Artificial Lawyer survey of legal and legal tech professionals, 42% of respondents said they now work more since adopting AI tools, while 50% reported working about the same amount. Only 7% said they work less. The findings challenge the longstanding expectation that automation and AI would meaningfully reduce time spent on legal work.

Tromans argues that rather than shrinking workloads, AI expands the volume of work that can be handled. The greater efficiency from reduced friction allows firms and in-house teams to process more matters, generate more activity, and increase overall workload. Higher efficiency makes the system busier. 

At the same time, AI has introduced additional oversight responsibilities, such as corrective work. More time is spent reviewing and validating AI-generated work to ensure accuracy and appropriateness. Both in-house legal teams and legal tech companies face similar pressures as productivity gains create expectations for greater output, faster development cycles, and increased responsiveness. The end result is that legal professionals are becoming more efficient without reclaiming personal time.

The goal of AI was to turn routine tasks over to AI, so employees could focus on higher-value work. Instead, it has been the legal industry’s AI paradox that more efficiency means more work. Tromans concludes that while AI has transformed productivity, human judgment has not scaled at the same pace. Legal professionals must decide whether AI will help them work smarter or simply work longer.