Key Challenges and 2025 Outlook

Note: This article is just one of 60+ sections from our full report titled: The 2024 Legal AI Retrospective - Key Lessons from the Past Year. Please download the full report to check any citations.

Challenges and Considerations

Ethical and Bias Concerns: In 2024, 27% of legal professionals who hadn't tried AI technologies cited concerns about ethics of use as the reason for this.[21]

Regulatory Landscape: As of 2024, several jurisdictions are developing or have implemented guidelines for the use of AI in legal practice, including ethical considerations and transparency requirements.[22]

Impact on Legal Workforce: AI could automate up to 23% of lawyers' work hours by 2030.[23]

Fundamental Distrust: The (un)reliability of AI-generated content has led to instances of misuse and misunderstanding, and public errors, such as citation of non-existent case law in court documents. This has raised concerns about the potential damage to AI's reputation in the legal sector.

Accuracy: The issue of "hallucination" - where AI models generate false or inaccurate information - is particularly problematic with current Large Language Models (LLMs) when handling legal queries. While some platforms are addressing this by implementing source citation features, the problem remains a significant hurdle in the widespread adoption of AI in legal practice.

Continued growth in usage: Are we already nearing AI adoption? A Slack survey of 17k global workers (not legal professionals) shows that the rate of adoption is already slowing.[24]

Future Outlook

The prolific integration of generative AI in the past 12 months marks what will be an undeniably pivotal moment in the legal sector's history.

"The models are moving fast. If you try to use the tech and faceplant on the 1st of the month it's worth checking on the 14th and the 28th of the month to see how far the world has moved in the meantime!"

Oliver Asha, Head of Legal, UK