On AI, Usable Tools, and the Work Lawyers Still Need to Do

Many in-house legal teams are navigating the same pressures: more work, higher stakes, and technology that is changing fast. In this series, LegalOn CEO Daniel Lewis sits down with in-house legal professionals to talk workload, tools, trade-offs, and what it means to be a lawyer today.

AI adoption depends not only on capability, but on whether the tool fits into the lawyer's day.

Max is Corporate Counsel at a large software company, working with public sector customers across Europe. His work can involve Italy one day, France or Spain the next, and sometimes questions about doing business in countries where the legal and commercial risks are less familiar.

His company, like many technology companies, is deep into AI. The company has access to a wide range of tools, including its own systems and external platforms. Employees are asked to experiment, build agents, and think about how AI can change their work.

He sees the value in that. He is optimistic about AI and already uses it in practical ways. But he also makes a simple distinction.

"I'm a lawyer," Max says.

Being good at legal work and being good at building apps are different skills. Both matter. He wants tools that are easy to use, reliable, and ready for the kind of work a lawyer actually does. 

Where AI Helps

Max has found AI most helpful in several particular tasks.

Translation is one. For a lawyer working across European markets, being able to translate documents quickly can materially change turnaround time. Summarization is another. Long documents are part of the job, and getting a reliable overview faster helps him move more quickly to the judgment work.

He has also used AI for deeper research into areas where he does not already have much background. If the question is whether there are legal or commercial risks in doing business in a less familiar jurisdiction, AI can help him get oriented: what to look for, what risks may matter, where the open questions are, and where further human review is needed.

Those uses support the legal work without replacing it. They help him read faster, understand faster, and begin from a more informed place.

Where He Holds Back

There are other uses Max has chosen not to adopt. Drafting emails is one example. He can see how AI might help there, but he does not want to outsource that kind of everyday thinking.

Some contracting work is another example. Many of the public sector contracts he handles are long, complex, and often unique. AI may help summarize or translate parts of them, but he has not moved deeply into AI-assisted contract review yet.

He also has experience with older contract lifecycle management (CLM) software that has not felt easy to use. Adoption depends not only on capability, but on whether the tool fits into the lawyer's day.

Younger Lawyers and the Baseline Answer

Max is optimistic about what AI may do for younger lawyers. He sees junior attorneys as digitally fluent and comfortable with technology. In some ways, he thinks AI may help them develop faster because they can learn, digest, and compare information more quickly than prior generations.

With AI becoming increasingly good at producing baseline answers, lawyers have to add something more.‍

This could be both a positive and necessary development. For him, being an in-house lawyer has become more difficult. The edge may come from staying close to the latest trends, research, regulatory changes, and market developments. It may also come from understanding what the business needs, what the counterparty cares about, and where a legal answer needs a commercial perspective.

The Lawyer's Role

Max is not predicting the end of legal work. He is not dismissing AI either. He is using AI tools where they help and avoiding them where they risk making his own thinking too passive.

AI can make legal work faster. It can also make it harder to stand out. For him, the lawyers who add value will be the ones who bring something beyond the first draft.