In-house legal departments are actively embracing generative AI, recognizing its potential to enhance the speed, quality, and cost-effectiveness of legal work. Early adopters have observed incremental improvements rather than radical overhauls, but they are continuously experimenting and expanding AI applications while addressing concerns like maintaining human oversight, implementing safeguards, and training staff in new skills. This shift is expected to change the balance of work between in-house teams and outside counsel, with more tasks traditionally handled by law firms, such as discovery and due diligence, being brought in-house.
Companies like Unilever and CrowdStrike are already seeing tangible benefits. Unilever's legal team, for instance, reports that lawyers using AI tools save an average of 30 minutes daily on tasks like contract drafting and review, reducing reliance on external counsel. CrowdStrike's chief legal officer, Cathleen Anderson, notes that AI tools enable quicker early case assessments, better preparing her team for discussions with outside counsel. Her team, comprising over 80 members, has been instrumental in promoting AI adoption company-wide, with more than 100 AI agents under development. A report from October 2025 indicated that AI adoption rates for in-house lawyers more than doubled in a year, with nearly two-thirds expecting to reduce their reliance on outside counsel.
AI is not just about efficiency but also about transforming legal roles. At Accenture, a training program emphasizes "personal reinvention amid AI and technological transformation" for its 3,300 legal professionals, focusing on skills like prompting and building AI agents. National Grid's legal team, recognized for its innovative AI adoption, aims to reinvent its operations, including improving information sharing and risk identification. While AI platforms like Harvey and Legora can be costly, potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, companies like Workday are making strategic investments, acquiring AI startups to gain wholesale access. The consensus among legal leaders is that AI will demand new skills from lawyers, shifting their focus to quality assurance, design, and relationship management, effectively making them "human in the loop" for reviewing and validating automated work.
