By now, most lawyers are familiar with the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI). With nearly three-quarters of a law firm’s hourly billable tasks potentially exposed to automation by AI, there’s seemingly no limit to the ways AI can be leveraged in modern law firms.
But do the benefits of AI only apply to certain types of legal work?
While much of the conversation on AI in law centers around its impact on litigation, its role in transforming transactional legal work is just as significant. From contract drafting to due diligence and deal efficiency, AI helps lawyers complete transactional legal tasks faster and more efficiently.
Let’s explore how AI is transforming transactional legal work, how to choose the right AI technology to address common pain points, and the key benefits of integrating AI tools into your transactional legal workflows.
Want to harness the power of AI to automate routine tasks—right within your practice management software? You can use Clio Duo, your legal AI partner built into Clio Manage, to ask about documents, generate summaries, and much more. Book a Clio Duo demo today!
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Get Started NowUnderstanding where AI fits into transactional legal work
At its core, transactional legal work is all about business transactions—whether it’s mergers and acquisitions, contracts, real estate deals, or ensuring regulatory compliance. These transactional legal processes often require time-consuming, detail-oriented tasks that must be completed before lawyers can use their expertise to negotiate and advise clients effectively.
This is where AI comes in. Many AI tools can quickly analyze large datasets, identify patterns, assess risks, and automate tasks, making them particularly transformative for transactional legal work.
By automating many of the routine elements of transactional legal work, AI allows lawyers to focus on high-level analysis and strategic advice. For example, AI can automate and assist with tasks like:
- Reviewing and organizing closing documents
- Drafting and reviewing purchase agreements and contracts
- Conducting legal research
- Analyzing and reviewing large volumes of documents
Will transactional lawyers be replaced by AI?
AI won’t replace transactional lawyers, but it is transforming how they work. By automating time-consuming routine tasks like contract review, due diligence, and legal research, AI enhances overall efficiency—freeing up time for transactional lawyers to focus on tasks involving complex legal reasoning, negotiations, and client relationships.
Choosing the right AI technology for transactional legal work
Selecting AI solutions for transactional legal work goes beyond security, ethical considerations, and regulatory compliance—it’s about finding AI tools to solve your firm’s most significant bottlenecks.
The key is to identify the most time-consuming and repetitive tasks in your firm’s workflows and match them with AI-powered tools that directly solve those pain points. Consider the following steps for narrowing down the types of AI tools you’re looking for:
- Pinpoint your firm’s biggest bottlenecks. First, you’ll want to identify the specific transactional tasks that slow you down the most. Consider: Do lawyers at your firm spend countless hours reviewing contracts for inconsistencies? Is keeping up with due diligence document review taking up a lot of staff time? Or are certain administrative tasks like organizing closing documents taking longer than you’d like?
- Determine which tasks are automatable. Not every legal task is a good fit for AI assistance or automation—but many transactional tasks are. For example, according to our latest Legal Trends Report, tasks related to documenting and recording information (26%), getting information (21%), and analyzing data or information (19%) are among the most automatable in the legal industry. With this in mind, tasks that are repetitive, data-heavy, and rule-based are likely the best candidates for AI.
- Find the right AI tool to match. Once you’ve identified which tasks are most automatable, the next step is selecting AI tools that best align with your firm’s needs to automate them. And, if you can find a tool that solves that problem while integrating it with your existing tech, you can unlock further efficiency gains. For example, Clio’s AI solution, Clio Duo, is built into Clio’s practice management software.
Top AI tools for transactional legal work
Consider the following common transactional legal tasks and AI solutions that can help:
Large documents review and due diligence
AI-powered solutions like Logikcull (which integrates with Clio) and Everlaw help lawyers streamline the review and analysis of large volumes of documents. These tools can automate document sorting, flag potential risks, and extract key clauses—reducing the time spent on manual review. By leveraging AI tools, lawyers can accelerate legal document review and due diligence and improve accuracy.
Contract drafting and review
From contract drafting tools that can generate contract templates and suggest clauses to tools that can compare agreements or flag wording issues, AI-driven solutions like Spellbook and Lexis+ Agreement Analysis can help streamline contract drafting and review.
Administrative support
Managing document organization, scheduling, task automation, and other repetitive administrative tasks are time-consuming aspects of transactional legal work. Here, AI-powered tools like Clio Duo that sync with practice management software can help streamline and automate these tasks.
Legal research
While they may not rely on legal research as much as litigation lawyers, effective legal research is crucial for transactional lawyers in many areas, such as strengthening negotiating strategies or staying updated on regulations and case law for ensuring regulatory compliance for deals such as in real estate or mergers and acquisitions.
AI tools for legal research like Westlaw Edge, Bloomberg Law, or vLex can quickly and efficiently analyze case law, statutes, regulations, and more to surface relevant legal insights.
The benefits of using AI to streamline transactional legal work
Using AI to streamline transactional legal work offers several key benefits, including:
- Lawyers can get more done—faster. By automating time-consuming tasks like document review, AI tools boost efficiency and save lawyers time. This can lead to cost savings, as resources can be better allocated to higher-value work and billable hours.
AI-powered tools like Clio Duo make finding data points within stored documents much faster and more efficient. “With Clio Duo, I can get the data I need instantly just by asking a question. I don’t have to run reports or filter through custom fields anymore, which saves me time and helps me be more productive,” says Melissa Oosterhof, Attorney at Oosterhof Law Office, PLLC.
- Accuracy goes up, risk goes down. AI tools minimize manual human error, especially when reviewing large volumes of documents. With improved accuracy, lawyers are better equipped to spot potential risks and inconsistencies, particularly during document review and due diligence.
- A competitive advantage. While competitors may be bogged down with the burden of manual tasks, lawyers using AI in transactional legal work gain a significant advantage by saving time, reducing costs, and unlocking more time to focus on strategic tasks like negotiation and using legal expertise to deliver better results for clients.
- Better client relationships. By automating routine tasks, lawyers can dedicate more time to client interactions and delivering a better client experience. Plus, AI adoption aligns with the preferences of today’s legal clients, who increasingly value the use of technology to deliver more efficient and effective legal services. According to our latest Legal Trends Report, nearly half of all clients would prefer to work with law firms that use AI, and, cumulatively, 70% of clients are either agnostic to the use of AI or would prefer to work with firms that use AI.
The future of AI in transactional legal work
As the impact of AI continues to grow in the legal industry, its role in transactional legal work is likely to expand. With this in mind, law firms that want to stay competitive should consider adopting AI tools to streamline transactional legal tasks, improve efficiency, and reduce costs—but that doesn’t mean firms should panic and start implementing every AI tool available.
For instance, consider the following best practices to prepare your firm for AI adoption in transactional work:
- Make a plan. With many crucial ethical and legal considerations to navigate when adopting AI tools at your firm, it’s essential to develop a comprehensive law firm AI policy—supported by a well-structured AI policy template—to help your firm reap the benefits of AI while mitigating risks.
- Adopt AI tools strategically. Assess areas where your firm could most benefit from automation and improved efficiency. Then, look for AI tools that specifically address those challenges and seamlessly integrate them into your existing tech stack to ensure smoother implementation.
- Start small and scale. Begin by focusing on the top time-constraining tasks at your firm and adopt AI tools to help with them first. Then, you can introduce additional AI tools to address other needs over time.
- Prioritize security. Protecting your clients’ sensitive information is crucial, so ensure that any AI tools you consider are secure and comply with industry standards for data privacy, security, and ethical practices.
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Conclusion
AI is transforming the way transactional legal work gets done. By automating many of the time-consuming, repetitive tasks that traditionally take up a lot of time for transactional lawyers, AI tools improve efficiency and allow a shift in focus toward more strategic and higher-value work.
As new AI tools continue to emerge, law firms that embrace AI tools and integrate them into their transactional legal workflows will be better equipped to stay competitive, improve efficiency, and deliver a better experience to clients.
Could AI transform the way your law firm works for the better? Learn more about how Clio Duo can automate routine tasks and help you work smarter—and book a demo today.