TLDR: Law firms and legal technology providers are rapidly integrating agentic AI into their operations, marking a significant transformation in how legal services are delivered. This advanced AI, capable of autonomous multi-step task execution, is streamlining workflows, enhancing efficiency in areas like case management and contract review, and allowing legal professionals to focus on strategic, high-value work.
The legal industry is experiencing a profound shift as law firms and legal technology providers embrace agentic AI at an unprecedented pace. This advanced form of artificial intelligence, which goes beyond generative AI by planning, executing, and adapting across multiple tools to achieve complex goals, is fundamentally reshaping legal workflows and service delivery.
Unlike earlier AI models that primarily responded to queries or analyzed data, agentic AI systems can autonomously perform intricate tasks, set goals, make decisions, and even coordinate with other systems. This capability makes them particularly well-suited for the multifaceted nature of legal work, which is often workflow-oriented rather than task-specific. Experts note that agentic AI can consume information, apply logic, craft arguments, and complete multi-step processes, freeing legal professionals from tedious, time-consuming, and often non-billable administrative burdens.
Several large law firms have emerged as early adopters, leveraging agentic AI to create internal efficiencies and develop client-facing products. The momentum for agentic AI in legal technology significantly increased in late 2024 and has accelerated further into 2025, with numerous vendors announcing new AI agent products. This rapid development suggests that agents have largely replaced chatbots as the primary subject of technological excitement in the legal sphere.
Key applications of agentic AI within the legal sector include:
Smarter Case Management: Agentic AI systems are now managing entire litigation workflows autonomously, tracking deadlines, assigning tasks, generating status reports, and following up with clients or team members, acting proactively rather than merely reminding users. This is akin to having a highly organized legal operations manager on autopilot.
Automated Contract Drafting and Review: What was once a significant time sink is now being handled by agentic AI tools that can review, analyze, and even draft contracts with remarkable efficiency.
Enhanced Legal Research: These systems can quickly make sense of large datasets, extract relevant information, and assist in building chronologies for document bundles.
Streamlined Billing and Time Tracking: Agentic AI can automatically track work across platforms, categorize activities, assign them to correct clients or matters, and generate detailed, auditable timesheets, reducing administrative burden and improving transparency.
Training and Onboarding: AI agents are being used to onboard junior lawyers, guiding them through case histories, firm protocols, and live projects, enabling new hires to get up to speed faster.
Prominent legal tech companies and law firms are at the forefront of this adoption. DeepJudge, for instance, announced its legal AI Workflows product, integrating AI agents that connect to a firm’s internal data. Companies like Harvey, Legora (formerly Leya), Bryter, Dioptra, Hebbia, Centari, Lawdify, Alexi, LawDroid, Emmi, and Flank AI have all been actively building and promoting agentic developments. Legora, a Swedish agentic AI startup, is being rolled out across Bird & Bird’s global offices and has a collaborative pilot project with Mishcon de Reya.
Chris Williams, Head of Strategic Partnerships and Community at Legora, emphasizes their approach: ‘Instead of hiring lawyers to find use cases and then developing a product to address those use cases, Legora set out to build flexible functionality. Rather than selling tickets to a destination, we want to go with lawyers on the journey to discover how AI can best impact their work.’ He further explained that Legora’s agentic AI understands legal context and breaks down tasks like a lawyer, selecting the appropriate tool for summarization, litigation chronology, or translation.
Simmons & Simmons, a firm that acquired legal engineering firm Wavelength, is also integrating agentic AI and the concept of ‘digital workers’ into its legal and compliance teams, utilizing its internal large language model, Percy, alongside Flank AI. Peter Lee, a partner at Simmons & Simmons, notes, ‘Agentic AI is disaggregating entire processes and removing the need for human interaction. This is not the same as document automation or robotic process automation because the level of engagement with an agent means it’s more like having a digital co-worker.’ He predicts that agentic AI will change the skills needed in legal and compliance teams and deliver significant savings.
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While the benefits are substantial, human oversight remains crucial, especially for high-stakes tasks requiring precision, judgment, and ethical responsibility. However, the consensus is clear: legal organizations that do not embrace this technology risk falling behind. The legal industry in 2025 is undergoing a massive evolution, driven by AI tools that are now sophisticated enough to make change inevitable, allowing lawyers to focus more on strategic thinking, client relationships, and the core work of justice.
