Generative AI for Legal Teams: Top Use Cases, Case Studies & Analysis
Legal teams today face increasing demands, more contracts, tighter deadlines, and heightened compliance requirements. However, resources often remain limited. Generative AI is emerging as a transformative solution, not only automating routine tasks but also fundamentally changing how legal work is performed. For law firm partners, in-house counsel, and legal operations leaders, understanding the impact of generative AI is now a strategic necessity.
This guide goes beyond surface-level overviews to provide practical use cases, real-world case studies, and critical analysis of adoption challenges and return on investment (ROI). Whether you are considering your first AI pilot or looking to scale advanced legal workflows, you will find actionable insights to drive meaningful results.
Understanding generative AI in the legal sector
Generative AI uses advanced machine learning models that can create new legal content such as clauses, summaries, and entire contracts by learning from vast legal and regulatory datasets. Unlike traditional legal technology that relies on fixed rules and templates, generative AI understands context and intent, allowing it to produce human-like drafts, analyses, and recommendations.
What generative AI can do
Generative AI can draft and revise contracts in natural language, summarize lengthy case law, generate tailored compliance checklists, and answer legal questions with contextual precision. These capabilities help legal teams handle large workloads faster and with greater consistency.
Core capabilities for legal teams
- Contextual drafting: Produces clauses and full agreements that adapt to the matter, not just fill templates.
- Automated summarization: Reduces review time by condensing complex documents into clear, actionable summaries.
- Risk flagging: Highlights deviations from internal playbooks, precedent, or regulatory standards.
- Conversational interfaces: Enables lawyers and clients to query legal data or documents through intuitive, chat-based tools.
How legal teams are using generative AI today
Legal teams are already applying generative AI to enhance day-to-day operations and reduce manual workload. Solutions such as LEGALFLY’s agentic contract review and drafting platform, AI-powered legal research assistants, and automated compliance monitoring systems help teams manage contracts, analyze complex data, and maintain regulatory accuracy with greater speed and confidence.
Generative AI represents a shift from simply streamlining legal processes to transforming them. It enables legal teams to focus on higher-value work such as strategic decision-making, negotiation, and client advisory, redefining what productivity and precision mean in modern legal practice.
Top use cases of generative AI for legal teams
Generative AI offers a wide range of applications across the legal workflow, delivering value at every stage.
Generative AI is reshaping every stage of the legal workflow, from contract creation to compliance monitoring. When applied strategically, it delivers measurable gains in speed, accuracy, and consistency.
1. Contract Drafting and Review
- Creates NDAs, MSAs, and custom agreements in minutes.
- Flags risky or nonstandard clauses and suggests compliant alternatives.
- Performs multidocument reviews for large transactions.
2. Legal Research and Summarization
- Extracts key insights from case law and precedents.
- Summarizes regulatory updates for compliance teams.
- Answers complex legal questions with clear sourcing.
3. Discovery and Document Analysis
- Finds relevant documents for litigation or investigations.
- Clusters and tags evidence for faster review.
- Automatically redacts confidential information.
4. Compliance and Risk Management
- Monitors contracts for regulatory issues and deadlines.
- Generates audit ready compliance reports.
- Supports frameworks such as GDPR, DORA, and ESG mandates.
5. Client and Stakeholder Communication
- Provides instant answers to common questions.
- Drafts updates, summaries, and progress reports.
- Enables self service portals for routine requests.
Key takeaway: Generative AI is most impactful when integrated directly into the tools legal teams already use, such as Microsoft Word and SharePoint, minimizing disruption and accelerating adoption.
Get started with LEGALFLY
Schedule a call with a LEGALFLY expert to discover how legal AI can streamline your work, from research and contract review to drafting and due diligence.
Real-world case studies: generative AI in action
1. De Groote – De Man: Scaling Expertise Across a Law Firm
Challenge: The Belgian law firm needed to standardize contract reviews and due diligence across multiple practice areas while managing limited resources.
Solution: LegalFly’s generative AI platform automated first pass reviews and embedded the firm’s playbooks directly into the review process.
Results: Faster document turnaround, improved consistency, and reduced repetitive manual work across more than 50 lawyers.
Insight: Generative AI allowed the firm to scale internal expertise without expanding headcount.
Source: Webinar: How Legal Teams Are Using AI Today: Insights from Early Adopters
2. KBC Bank: Driving Compliance and Consistency at Scale
Challenge: KBC, Belgium’s largest bank, needed to ensure that high volumes of vendor and service contracts met strict internal compliance standards.
Solution: LegalFly deployed AI powered playbooks that automated reviews for regulatory and internal policy alignment.
Results: Significant reduction in manual review time and improved standardization across thousands of contracts.
Insight: Embedding legal knowledge into AI playbooks enhanced compliance oversight and accelerated review without compromising control.
Source: Webinar: DORA Compliance After January: What’s Next
3. ESG and Insurance: Continuous Compliance at Scale
Challenge: A consortium of insurers including BNP Paribas Fortis, KPMG, and Ethias needed to meet ESG and DORA compliance requirements across multiple entities.
Solution: LegalFly’s AI agents analyzed vendor agreements and ESG reports, identifying compliance gaps and summarizing obligations automatically.
Results: Faster reporting cycles, fewer manual reviews, and consistent compliance tracking across all entities.
Insight: Generative AI transformed regulatory compliance from a one time effort into a sustainable, auditable process.
Source: Webinar: The Overlooked Use Cases for AI in Insurance
4. Legal Advisory Services: Enhancing Client Delivery
Challenge: A mid sized European law firm sought to reduce research time and expand its regulatory advisory services.
Solution: Using LegalFly’s AI tools, the firm summarized complex legislation and generated impact assessments for clients.
Results: Research cycles shortened from days to hours, enabling faster delivery of client updates and analyses.
Insight: Generative AI supports innovation in legal services, helping firms expand advisory capacity without increasing costs.
Source: Webinar: How to Successfully Implement Legal AI: A Step by Step Guide
Key benefits and measurable ROI for legal teams
Key Benefits and Measurable ROI for Legal Teams
The business case for generative AI in legal operations is clear. Across LegalFly’s client base, teams report measurable improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and compliance, delivering tangible return on investment from day one.
Efficiency and Productivity
LegalFly client benchmarks show that teams save up to 240 hours per lawyer annually by automating high volume contract review and compliance checks.
Organizations such as Agristo and ECS have reduced contract review times from hours to minutes, freeing teams to focus on strategy and negotiation.
Faster cycles accelerate business operations and support faster revenue recognition.
Cost Optimization
Legal departments reduce their reliance on outside counsel for routine or repetitive reviews.
Automated clause analysis and redlining streamline internal workflows, allowing in house teams to manage higher volumes without additional hires.
Early adopters report lower overall review costs and improved budget predictability.
Accuracy and Risk Mitigation
AI powered playbooks ensure consistent application of legal and regulatory standards.
Explainable outputs and full audit trails create defensible documentation for compliance and dispute resolution.
Clients in regulated sectors such as banking and insurance highlight improved readiness for audits and inspections.
Enhanced Business and Client Service
Faster turnaround on contracts and legal requests improves stakeholder satisfaction.
Proactive risk flagging and automated compliance summaries keep legal teams ahead of changing regulations.
ROI Snapshot: Verified and Observed Client Outcomes
Challenges and ethical considerations in legal AI adoption
While generative AI offers major advantages, legal teams must address several key challenges to ensure responsible and effective use.
- Data privacy and confidentiality: Sensitive information requires strict safeguards. LegalFly mitigates this risk through contract anonymization and enterprise-grade security.
- Bias and reliability: AI accuracy depends on data quality. Keeping a human in the loop is essential for high-stakes reviews.
- Regulatory compliance: Jurisdiction-specific rules may not be reflected in general AI models. Custom agents and explainable outputs help maintain legal defensibility.
- Change management: Adoption succeeds when AI is integrated into familiar tools like Microsoft Word and reinforced through hands-on training.
Expert tip: Begin with a focused pilot on low-risk agreements, review results collaboratively, and expand gradually as confidence and trust grow.
How to evaluate and implement generative AI solutions
Selecting and deploying generative AI requires a strategic approach.
- Define your objectives
Identify the problems you aim to solve, such as contract bottlenecks or compliance risks. - Vendor selection criteria
Assess security and anonymization features.
Ensure integration with your existing tech stack (Word, SharePoint, CLM).
Look for explainable outputs and audit trails.
Confirm customization for your playbooks and jurisdictions. - Pilot and phased rollout
Start with a focused use case, such as NDAs or vendor contracts.
Involve both legal and IT stakeholders.
Measure time savings, accuracy, and user adoption. - Ongoing optimization
Gather user feedback.
Expand to new document types and workflows.
Monitor ROI and compliance outcomes.
Mini checklist for legal teams
- Are your contracts anonymized before AI processing?
- Does the solution provide explainable, auditable outputs?
- Can you customize agents for your policies and jurisdictions?
- Is the tool embedded in your existing workflow?
Explore How to Assess Legal AI Platforms in 10 Minutes to compare vendors quickly and identify the right solution for your organization.
Future trends: the evolving role of generative AI in legal services
Generative AI continues to advance, with several trends shaping its future.
- Deeper integration with legal tech stacks: Seamless handoff between CLM, eDiscovery, and AI review tools
- Smarter, more specialized agents: Industry and jurisdiction-specific compliance checks, multilingual support for cross-border matters
- New skills for legal professionals: AI oversight, prompt engineering, and data governance
- Shifts in service delivery: Increased self-service for clients and legal teams acting as strategic advisors
Strategic recommendation: Invest in AI governance and upskilling now. Firms that master both technology and trust will lead the next era of legal services.
Next steps: bringing generative AI to your legal team
Generative AI is already transforming legal work. The key question is how quickly your team will adapt. To summarize:
- Generative AI delivers measurable efficiency, cost, and risk benefits
- Real-world case studies demonstrate practical and profitable adoption
- Success depends on careful vendor selection, phased rollout, and ongoing optimization
Ready to see what generative AI can do for your legal team?
Request a demo with LEGALFLY’s specialists. Discover how to accelerate your legal workflows securely, efficiently, and with full control.