Algorithms and Advocacy: Balancing AI Use in Commercial Litigation
In today’s tech-driven legal environment, artificial intelligence is already fundamentally changing how law firms conduct business. AI platforms are reshaping case strategies, client expectations, and courtroom dynamics. Below is a primer on what attorneys and business leaders need to understand about AI tools and how they have become increasingly integrated into legal practice.
Current Applications and Benefits of AI Litigation Tools
The days of associates manually reviewing countless documents are fading. Today’s AI-powered e-discovery platforms process millions of documents efficiently and accurately, going beyond simple keyword searches to include features such as:
- Predictive coding that learns from human reviewers to identify relevant materials
- Semantic analysis that groups conceptually similar documents
- Automatic extraction of key points within complex data sets
For clients, this means reduced costs and faster timelines. Cases involving hundreds of thousands of documents can be processed, sorted, and analyzed in days rather than months, saving 50% or more in review costs.
Litigation Analytics Platforms
Litigation analytics platforms provide evidence-based insights on judicial rulings, opposing counsel’s tendencies, likely outcomes, and settlement patterns in comparable disputes. This data-driven approach enables more informed decisions about strategy from the earliest stages, saving time and directing counsel’s attention to critical issues related to risk exposure.
AI Legal Assistants
AI-powered virtual legal assistants have streamlined case intake, client communications, and deadline management, ensuring timely updates while allowing legal teams to focus on aspects requiring human judgment. Soon, litigants can expect AI-powered case screening, automated drafting of standard motions, and sophisticated analytics on everything from judicial tendencies to potential verdict ranges. Courts themselves are adopting these technologies for docket management and standardizing procedures.
Advanced AI Capabilities
Looking forward, next-generation AI will transform how digital evidence is processed in litigation through several advanced capabilities. Audio review technology will automatically transcribe, analyze, and flag key statements from recorded meetings, phone calls, and depositions. They’ll be able to identify critical admissions, patterns of evasion, confidence levels, and inconsistencies across testimonies that could escape human reviewers. Visual recognition systems will scan photographic and video evidence to identify relevant objects, people, locations, and timestamps—critical in cases involving surveillance footage or large volumes of digital imagery. Additionally, integrated analysis capabilities will correlate information across text documents, audio recordings, images, and metadata to reveal connections and chronologies that might otherwise go undetected.
Navigating AI’s Ethical Maze
Despite its benefits, AI presents significant ethical challenges. The “black box” problem refers to AI systems that produce recommendations or analysis without transparent reasoning. Generative AI platforms at times create “hallucinations”—fabricated legal authorities, quotations, and propositions—raising questions of how attorneys can properly evaluate and stand behind AI-generated work product, and how to effectively explain AI-assisted decisions to clients and courts.
Data security implications are equally concerning. Using third-party AI platforms may require sharing sensitive client information, raising confidentiality questions. Firms must conduct thorough due diligence on AI providers’ data protection measures and communicate clearly with clients about AI usage, obtaining approval before sharing confidential information.
Business leaders facing litigation should engage counsel about their strategy for AI use by asking key questions, including:
- Which specific AI tools will be used and for what purposes?
- How will these technologies affect billing and overall costs?
- What quality control processes ensure accuracy?
- How is confidential information protected?
Multiple state bar associations have emphasized that while AI can enhance legal work, it cannot replace professional judgment. Attorneys remain responsible for supervising these tools and verifying their outputs. The regulatory environment is evolving toward more defined standards and specific court rules governing AI-generated work product.
Strategic, Balanced and Complementary AI Use
The most successful litigation strategies won’t replace attorneys with algorithms but will instead leverage the unique strengths of each through advanced collaborative tools like attorney-guided training of AI models, real-time human feedback during document review, and combined human-AI strategic decision making. It will be increasingly essential to partner with firms that thoughtfully integrate these technologies while maintaining human expertise and judgment essential to effective advocacy.
The AI revolution represents a fundamental shift in legal service delivery. For attorneys, embracing these technologies while emphasizing uniquely human skills—professional judgment, creative problem-solving, and ethical reasoning—will be vital to continued growth. For clients, these developments offer opportunities for more efficient, predictable, and data-driven dispute resolution. The key is finding counsel who can effectively harness these powerful tools while maintaining the role of trusted advisor that is at the heart of successful attorney-client partnerships.
About the author
Matthew M. McCluer is Special Counsel in the New Orleans office of Leake Andersson. Matt’s practice areas include: Casualty, Commercial Litigation, Labor & Employment, Professional Liability, Insurance, and IP. He has extensive experience representing management across numerous industries in litigation, advising on employment and compliance issues, drafting company policies and employment agreements, conducting internal investigations, and preparing corporate responses to administrative charges and audits by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, National Labor Relations Board, and other federal and state agencies. He also has a background in civil litigation ranging from personal injury and premises liability to expropriation and land use.
