AI: soothing stress in the legal sector
Using AI could mean a better work-life balance, happier clients, and increased job satisfaction for lawyers. Could this lead to better mental health, too?
Lawyers across the UK are rushing to embrace generative AI – four out of five now use or plan to use the technology, a LexisNexis survey has found.
Why? It helps them work faster.
Going one step further, 41% of lawyers believe AI will help improve their work-life balance, particularly respondents from in-house legal teams, at 47%.
If executed well, AI could be a godsend to the legal sector.
AI could help reduce workloads for lawyers
"The legal profession has remained largely unaffected by new technology for several decades and was overdue for a shake-up."
The time for that shake-up has arrived. The LexisNexis September 2024 survey found that 82% of lawyers now use, or plan to use, AI for work, with in-house teams leading this revolution at 89%.
May Winfield, Global Director of Commercial , Legal and Digital Risks at engineering and construction firm, Buro Happold, thinks the time-saving abilities of AI are of huge benefit.
"AI enables my commercial and legal team to have more time in what is really of value — the analysis of issues and risks, deciding on solutions and mitigation, and commercially-minded support."
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Our latest survey revealed:
- The number of lawyers using AI has jumped to 41%, up from 11% in July 2023
- Those with no AI plans have plummeted from 61% to 15% over the same time period
- Only one in five lawyers believe AI will not improve their work-life balance.
"The reason we bought in LLM technology is to really support the junior team. It helps all the juniors who are working remotely have a level of support because it's got all our templates and all our advice. It's a bit like asking all the lawyers at once, because it's all in the AI."
According to research by Legal Cheek, the average working day for a junior lawyer is between 10 and 12 hours. With a staggering 71% of respondents to the LexisNexis Bellwether 2024 Survey stating work-life balance is a more important incentive than salary when looking for a new role, a boost in speed, efficiency and streamlined operations now sounds like a dream come true: working smarter, not harder.
The Bellwether Survey also exposed worries around burnout — both for the individual and their colleagues — with more than half of respondents citing it as a significant challenge over the next 12 months. Even more concerning, 34% stated their current firm offered a poor, or average work-life balance. It's clear mental health is a serious problem that needs to be addressed within the industry.
All most people want is a fair compensation package and enough time to spend with friends and family outside of working hours.
AI's positive impacts on mental health
With rising stress levels in the legal industry, can AI help improve wellbeing?
It’s no secret that stress in the workplace has steadily increased over the past few decades, across every industry, particularly in the practice of law.
LawCare, the mental health charity for the legal sector, reported a 24% increase in the number of people contacting them for support in 2023. Their report, ‘Life in Law’ reveals more than 60% of lawyers surveyed in the UK and Ireland said they had experienced mental health issues and their wellbeing was suffering.
When you look at the top challenges facing firms and in-house teams, the impact on mental health is apparent.
The LexisNexis September 2024 survey revealed the top three challenges over the next 12 months in the workplace as being:
- Attracting and retaining good lawyers (43%)
- Keeping pace with new technology (41%)
- Cybersecurity (40%).
Unfortunately, this means declining internal resources, rising client expectations, and widespread disruption for most.
Yet with AI's promising rise in popularity, the winds could quickly change.
Two-thirds (60%) of the legal industry has made at least one change in preparation for generative AI, and twice as many firms or in-house teams now offer an AI-powered product to staff when compared to the beginning of this year, rising from 15% to 36%.
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“To change the culture in law, we need to start with changing our working practices. It’s time for legal workplaces to accept that long hours, heavy workloads, poor work-life balance, and the lack of effective supervision is undermining wellbeing.”
LawCare's Chief Executive, Elizabeth Rimmer, says generative AI presents lots of opportunities for law firms and legal teams to do things differently.
"Junior lawyers and trainees have been largely regarded as the labour force within some organisations that can carry out the grunt work and get it done."
Rimmer says there's an opportunity here for organisations to reduce the drudgery that younger lawyers have to do through the help of generative AI.
"You've got an opportunity here to give them more exciting and interesting work."
With the increasing adoption of this technology, the number of lawyers who believe AI will help them deliver work faster has dramatically risen to 71% in September 2024. Other top benefits were a better client experience (54%) and a competitive advantage (53%).
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“The amount of time that generative AI is going to save both in-house and private practice legal professionals means that so much more time can be spent on tasks that are more complex and stimulating.”
Delivering faster, better work, and developing greater client relationships are clear positive mental health benefits, along with freeing up mental capacity to work on more high-value, strategic, creatively fulfilling tasks.
“The ability to ask questions in natural language, rather than trying to guess what keywords may be of relevance, is greatly advantageous.”
The September survey also revealed that the top three most important factors when considering moving firms were a higher salary or compensation package, work/life balance and career development. Generative AI technology could be the answer to two out of three desires, and in turn, the key to retaining excellent lawyers.
Reshaping priorities to promote wellbeing
AI is helping to challenge the billable hour, enable flexibility and achieve the desired work-life balance.
Firms have always relied heavily on the number of hours billed when assessing individual performance, even though these resulting long hours and high targets have long been attributed to the cause of burnout in the legal industry.
The billable hour has largely made sense — a partnership model needs its future partners to prove their profit-making potential. However, this has come, ironically, at a cost, not only to a lawyer's wellbeing, but potentially to the company.
Annual billables are often regarded as more important than other metrics, such as customer satisfaction. But, especially with the rise of generative AI tools, they are no longer an accurate reflection of the value of the work delivered or an individual's long-term potential. This leaves a serious risk of undervaluing and underdeveloping highly capable team members. Feeling undervalued and not receiving the appropriate opportunities for upskilling and development is a surefire way to negatively impact wellbeing.
Talent attraction and retention have been listed as a top challenge for firms over the next 12 months. Given the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance for lawyers, it's unsurprising to see a shift in performance metrics.
The top metric is now feedback on the quality of work (57%), noticeably ahead of financial metrics such as profitability of work (44%) and revenue bought in (40%).
It seems like no coincidence that this has come about right when generative AI is starting to really take off.
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The boost in speed and efficiency that everyone finds so attractive from generative AI consolidates this and calls into question the billing models of many law firms and in-house teams, challenging the validity of the billable hour.
The General Counsel & Company Secretary at a BioTech company says: “The billable hour rewards inefficiency. AI removes the excuse of hours spent, so private practice lawyers will have to change the way they measure their contribution.”
For firms with strict hourly targets in place, the pressure to meet those targets can be detrimental to mental health and wellbeing.
Alex Hamilton, the CEO of Radiant Law, says his priority is team performance over individual performance.
“You’ve got to kick the habit of the timesheet as well as the billable hour, because as long as you keep telling people that more hours is a good thing, you’re going to get more hours,” said Hamilton.
“That’s not good for the client, the lawyer or the firm if they are trying to figure out how to add more value more efficiently,” he added.
Jodie Hill, the CEO of Thrive Law, says she deliberately introduced AI technology to her team in an attempt to improve their working lives.
"We want to use generative AI to make our employees' lives better, so they can do more of the fun, client-facing work and we can streamline the non-client-facing work."
Hill expands to say the rise of generative AI has highlighted the value of automation. She said it’s become clear there are instances where automation is enough. It’s important not to use generative AI ‘just because you can’.
Simple automation can be the key to freeing up time for more meaningful strategic work, which in turn, helps lawyers to feel supported and encouraged to grow and develop, increasing their retention.
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Enabling a more equal working environment
The impact of generative AI technology on encouraging equal opportunities within firms and organisations in the legal industry is significant, and an important factor towards improving mental wellbeing.
The top steps taken are flexible working (74%), mentoring opportunities (58%), and improved parental leave policies and support (42%). Generative AI can assist in all these areas. For example, improving the work-life balance and freeing up time and mental capacity to provide or engage with mentoring opportunities, may lead to feeling more engaged and invested in the workplace.
“The kind of applications we’re seeing – the way it’s been rolled out, the innovation, the investment – it’s off the scale.”
This transformative tech is also proving key to keeping up with the changing nature of the legal industry. The survey revealed the top changes to the practice of the law as being accelerating client demands (53%), greater regulation and reporting (50%) and developing more niche areas or subtopics (43%).
“Activities such as legal research, document review, and contract analysis will become simpler and quicker, allowing lawyers to concentrate on complex and strategic work.”
The additional workload capability by streamlining your workflow, automating repetitive, dull tasks and enabling personal growth and wider skill development all help contribute to positive mental wellbeing.
“Generative AI is integrated across our tech stack and all fee earners in the firm now have access to Generative AI tools. Firmwide training, regular comms and a comprehensive plan to support awareness and adoption has helped as we unlock the potential.”
However, it’s important to remember generative AI is not a one-size-fits-all.
“GenAI is not a magic bullet and won’t solve all problems. It’s about using this technology to improve how you work and what you deliver today.”
Dr. Katy Peters, Law Lecturer and Programme Lead for LLM in Professional Legal Practice from the University of Surrey, says AI should be thought of as another tool which can complement your legal skills rather than replace them. A sentiment echoed by Pawel Lipski, Partner at Bird & Bird.
“The technology is to be treated as to tool to be used with human supervision. And not just any supervision, but supervision by properly trained staff.”
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Investigating and negating negatives
What are some of the potential negative impacts of AI on mental health and how do we overcome these?
Of course, generative AI also has the potential for negative impacts on the mental health of lawyers. The LexisNexis survey listed the second biggest challenge over the next 12 months as keeping up-to-date with technology (41%), followed by increasing costs (38%) — generative AI could be the solution, but could it also exacerbate the challenges?
“It’s important that lawyers are familiar with AI technology in the same way they are with the internet now. Those that don’t use it will face a bit of an existential risk.”
For those unable to invest, or who find it difficult to adapt to new technology, generative AI might seem like a trend they’re unable to take part in and benefit from — this can raise serious questions and concerns about the future likelihood of success, or even survival, of their business.
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Furthermore, increasing the use of AI can raise all kinds of problems in the short-term, from disrupting rather than streamlining workflows, to causing moral and ethical quandaries.
Having trust in the results returned is another big worry, with hallucinations remaining the top concern for lawyers involved in the survey (76%). However, 72% of lawyers said they’d feel more confident using a generative AI tool grounded on legal content sources, with linked citations to the verifiable authority, up from 65% in January 2024.
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Generative AI can also cause anxiety and stress around overreliance on the technology, the types of data used and the bias it creates or reinforces, particularly when there's a lack of human oversight and quality controls.
Interestingly, although adoption rates are rising, the survey revealed overreliance is the second biggest concern when using AI (50%).
"There's risk we become reliant on a piece of tech and get a bit lazy, and actually we're perpetuating an unethical environment."
The technology also needs to be used in a compliant manner, without any data being compromised or confidentiality broken. For example, do clients know when it's being used? Do they need to know? The survey revealed the expectations are varied —77% of in-house legal teams believe clients want to be told if AI is used by external counsel, compared to 59% of firms.
Read 'Fast law: why speed is the priority for lawyers using AI'.
These questions should all be dealt with from the start, with training, human oversight and company policies to help avoid undue stress and anxiety.
“Employees should know this technology is there to help them, and should be confident about how they can and cannot use it.”
Final thoughts
The legal industry is embracing generative AI and this trend is only gathering momentum.
With each iteration, new potentials are becoming realities; increased efficiency, improved relationships, better client services, potential for upskilling and personal development. The possible positive impact is astounding.
However, without the necessary human involvement, guidance, training and supporting factors, AI could spell disaster for mental wellbeing, causing unnecessary anxiety, stress, and ethical dilemmas.
“The legal industry has a huge opportunity here to revolutionise the workplace and address the structures and systems which have historically lagged behind many other sectors”
Gerritt Beckhaus, Partner and Co-head, Freshfields Lab at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer believes proactively managing, AI and minimising and mitigating risks is fundamental, stating the most important element of their approach to AI is the ‘lawyer in the loop’ principle and 'human-centred legal AI’.
Firms and in-house legal teams who can capitalise on the potentials of AI, whilst managing the risks stand to gain a real advantage in boosting wellbeing, with increased job satisfaction and talent retention as additional benefits.
LexisNexis has now launched Lexis+ AI in the UK, which searches, summarises, and drafts using LexisNexis content.
Grounded in LexisNexis' enormous repository of accurate and exclusive legal content, Lexis+ AI combines the power of generative AI with proprietary LexisNexis search technology and authoritative content. Results are always backed by a verifiable, citable authority or source.
This tool was built with the RELX responsible AI principles in mind, says LexisNexis' Senior Director of Segments, Stuart Greenhill.
"Everything we do considers the real-world impact of the solution. Lexis+ AI proactively prevents the creation or reinforcement of bias, we ensure that we can always explain how and why our systems work in the way they do, human oversight is built in and we respect and champion privacy and data governance in all that we do."
Survey methodology
The survey was conducted across 803 lawyers and legal support workers in the United Kingdom and Ireland from August to September, 2024. Surveys were conducted in English.
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