GenAI in Legal: Progress, Promise, Pain, and Peril
December 25, 2024
With Generative AI accelerating post-mid-2024, Baretz+Brunelle partner and LexFusion co-founder Casey Flaherty delivers a compact yet robust survey of where things stand—and where they’re heading in legal practice. Based on closed-door roundtables and real-world deployments, Casey assesses what’s working and what isn’t.
Key insights:
Finally, the piece outlines key technical risks—probabilistic LLM foundations, hallucinations, and model limitations—and highlights the need for responsible AI: transparency, explainability, bias mitigation, and compliance .
View the GenAI in Legal in interactive format here.
Key insights:
- GenAI is Genuinely Transformative for Corporate Legal Budgets: Casey projects that generative AI could reshape up to 80% of the corporate legal spend, signaling a level of disruption few legal professionals yet fully grasp.
- Hype Fatigue is a Real Concern in the Legal Tech Landscape: Casey cautions that the market is now flooded with shallow “wrapper apps” riding the AI buzz—these dilute real innovation and make it harder to differentiate meaningful tools from fluff.
- We’re Still in the Early Stages of Responsible GenAI Adoption. Tools need to mature significantly across key dimensions like compliance, evaluation frameworks, data hygiene, and change management before they’re ready for large-scale deployment.
- GenAI Is Not a Magic Wand for Broken Processes. Without re-engineering workflows, systems risk simply automating dysfunction rather than improving outcomes, Casey emphasizes that effective use depends on solid process foundations
- The Time to Act Is Now—Early Movers Will Capture Strategic Advantage. Casey underscores that because GenAI initiatives require real work, waiting to catch up puts organizations at a serious disadvantage—“Now determines next.”
Finally, the piece outlines key technical risks—probabilistic LLM foundations, hallucinations, and model limitations—and highlights the need for responsible AI: transparency, explainability, bias mitigation, and compliance .
View the GenAI in Legal in interactive format here.
