New ABA report on AI use by lawyers
The use of AI in law firms has tripled
Law firms are dramatically increasing their use of AI tools, according to the 2024 ABA’s Legal Technology Survey Report.
Here's a breakdown of key insights.
AI Adoption Surges🚀
The use of AI in law firms nearly tripled in the past year, jumping from 11% in 2023 to 30% in 2024.
Biggest driver? Time savings and efficiency.
Biggest concern? Accuracy (cited by 75% of respondents).
Large firms (100+ attorneys): AI adoption soared from 16% in 2023 to 46% in 2024. Mid-sized firms (10-49 attorneys): Usage rose from 11% to 30%. Solo practitioners: Adoption nearly doubled, from 10% to 18%.
What’s next?
45% of attorneys say AI will be mainstream within three years, up from 39% last year.
ChatGPT leads the way.
Among firms using or considering AI, 52% cite ChatGPT as their top choice.
Small firms prefer it:
64% of firms (2-9 attorneys)
62% of solo practitioners
Larger firms opt for legal-specific AI, such as:
Thomson Reuters CoCounsel (26%)
Lexis+ AI (24%)
Harvey AI, Anthropic, Spellbook (smaller but growing traction)
🔍 How AI is Used in Legal Work
📊 Top use cases:
Legal research (35%)
Case strategy (23%)
Understanding judges (17%)
Predicting outcomes (13%)
🏛️ Larger firms leverage AI for:
Business development (23-30%)
Understanding opposing counsel (21-27%)
📚 How Lawyers Are Learning AI
CLE seminars & webinars (61%) dominate.
Publications (37%) and legal news (34%) also key sources.
Smaller firms rely more on CLEs, larger firms on industry news.
Why it matters
AI is rapidly transforming legal work, but challenges remain. Accuracy, reliability, and data security are top concerns.
More changes are obviously on the way.
Drop a comment, and let’s discuss what we think those changes might be.
And if you want to learn to use AI, the best way is to discuss its use amongst a group of other lawyers who are using it daily. This group is composed of only solo and very small firm lawyers, which is even better.
;-)
Ernie
So Ernie - that's a great summary of the Report : 5 volumes worth!
Be honest - you read
(a) the whole report and produced your summary;
(b) you read some of the report - well the summary of the report actually prepared by ABA which you used to prepare your summary;
(c) asked ChatGPt to prepare you a summary which you posted.
I've got 80% of my money running on (c).
All meant in good-humour of course : but it does illustrate where this is going.
Call me old -fashioned but if the practice of law comes down to knowing only what questions to ask without actually having a fair sense of what the answer is going to be (or should arguably be), I'm glad the best parts of my career are behind me. Sure this may spark some debate!