Two more hours a day for substantive work – an AI assistant for a law firm

The Warsaw-based firm, serving primarily business clients, employs fourteen lawyers across three practice groups: commercial, employment and tax law. Each of them spent the first 60–90 minutes of the day on a preliminary review of newly received contracts – often similar in nature and carrying recurring risks.

An experienced lawyer could identify the key risks in 25 minutes, whereas a junior colleague needed two hours and might overlook a clause they had not encountered before. Partners devoted a considerable share of their time to correcting first drafts of opinions.

The firm's accumulated expertise was also underused. Several hundred opinions and analyses prepared in previous years did not support current work, as there was no tool that would allow lawyers to quickly locate earlier positions on similar matters.

Over three weeks, we worked with the partners leading each practice group. They compiled a catalogue of typical risks in their areas of specialisation, model provisions and clauses requiring particular attention. We supplemented it with 380 of the firm's opinions from the past four years.

A lawyer opens a contract in Word and, with a single command, receives a summary of high-risk clauses – each linked to the relevant passage in the contract and to the most pertinent opinion in the firm's archive. In Microsoft Teams, they can ask whether a similar provision has been analysed before and receive references to specific documents.

Confidentiality was the top priority. Client data never leaves the firm's Microsoft 365 environment, every use of the assistant is logged, and lawyers can access only the documents permitted by their role. Before full rollout, three lawyers from different practice groups tested the solution for two weeks.

Within the first eight weeks, the accuracy of risk identification by junior lawyers rose by 45%. The assistant does not replace a lawyer's expertise – it gives every member of the team the same high starting point, which experienced lawyers then complement with the specifics of each case.

Partners spend 60% less time correcting first drafts of opinions, as these are now much closer to the final version. They devote the time regained to strategic work with clients.

The firm's body of work has become a genuine asset. Every new opinion enriches a knowledge base used by other teams, so the value of each piece of work continues to grow over the years.