What will the Legal Function of Tomorrow look like?

In rapidly changing times, AI is becoming part of almost every professional conversation. As its capabilities have expanded, so have people's expectations of what AI can do and most importantly, what it should do.

The legal industry is no exception.

The conversation has moved beyond whether lawyers should use AI. Legal professionals are increasingly asking more practical questions. 

Yash Rane and Gaurav Nagotanekar, Co-Founders of legal technology platform NyayAssist, have been having these conversations frequently with leaders across the legal ecosystem, including law firm leaders, Associates-on-Record, in-house counsel, government legal officials, policymakers and law school leaders.

Their interactions have offered them a closer view of how expectations around legal AI are evolving. Here are some of the thoughts and observations that have emerged from those conversations.

Question: What does AI have to offer to legal teams?

Yash Rane: I think this is where the conversation around AI has changed significantly. Initially, the question was whether AI could perform a particular legal task. Today, the question is increasingly about what AI can do for the legal team as a whole.

When we speak to legal professionals, a significant amount of their time is still spent on activities that are necessary but repetitive or information-heavy — reviewing documents, conducting research, preparing drafts, tracking matters, monitoring regulatory developments and working through large volumes of information.

AI can potentially take away a meaningful part of that operational burden.

But the larger opportunity lies beyond making individual tasks faster. AI can help legal teams rethink how a process works from beginning to end.

At the same time, there is no universal answer. A law firm has different requirements from an in-house legal team. An AoR handling litigation operates differently from corporate counsel, while government legal departments and law schools have their own requirements.

So, what AI has to offer is not simply a particular feature. It is the ability to understand the context in which a legal team works and meaningfully augment that work.

Question: How do we make sure AI strengthens legal work rather than dilute professional judgement?

Yash Rane: This is probably the most important part of the conversation.

Law is not simply a collection of processes that can be optimised. Law is a culture. It has its own ways of reasoning, interpreting information, dealing with precedent, exercising judgement and taking responsibility for outcomes.

For AI to genuinely become part of legal work, it has to understand and respect that culture.

Our conversations across the ecosystem have reinforced the importance of keeping the human in the loop. AI should not become a black box where someone receives an answer and accepts it simply because it sounds right.

There needs to be a habit of questioning, examining and verifying what AI produces.

That becomes particularly important when we think about the next generation of lawyers. If students are going to use AI throughout their legal education and professional careers, we should not create a generation that simply relies on whatever an AI system tells them.

We should create professionals who know how to use AI, question AI and verify AI.

Gaurav Nagotanekar: Ultimately, responsible adoption is not about asking how much legal work we can hand over to AI. It is about asking how much more meaningful we can make the work of legal professionals by using AI intelligently.

The answer will look different across the legal ecosystem. But one thing our conversations have made clear is that the industry is no longer asking whether AI is coming. It is already here.

The more important conversation now is about how thoughtfully we integrate it into the way law is practised, taught and understood.

Yash Rane and Gaurav Nagotanekar are Co-Founders of NyayAssist.