AI for In-House Counsel: Surprisingly Useful News

Three Ideas on AI & Agents for Legal Work

In this issue: recent news on AI governance in legal, a full agent-building workshop showing you how to create one from scratch, and a copy-paste prompt for contract review you can use today. We're also running Agent Building training later this month, starting 22 June—limited to 20 counsel, all experience levels welcome.

📋 View the Prompt ▶ Watch the Video Join Agent Builder Sprint (22 June) →

This Week's Reading

Gartner

Legal Tech Budgets to Double by 2028 as Legal AI Use Expands

Gartner forecasts that legal technology budgets will double by 2028, driven by widespread AI adoption. Specialised legal AI platforms such as Harvey, Legora, GC AI and Thomson Reuters CoCounsel are delivering significant productivity gains across contract review and due diligence workflows.

Key Insight:

Legal departments are prioritising AI investment. If your organisation hasn't yet mapped AI use cases in your contracts, M&A, or compliance workflows, now is the time. Start with a single high-volume process (e.g., vendor agreement review) and measure time savings.

Artificial Lawyer

AI is Enabling Significantly Accelerated M&A Due Diligence

AI is enabling legal teams to rapidly categorise and assess large volumes of contracts and filings during M&A, compressing review timelines from weeks to days. Gartner predicts that AI-powered contract lifecycle management (CLM) can cut contract review time by 50% and enable zero-touch contracting for low-risk agreements.

Key Insight:

If you have an M&A transaction in progress or pipeline, audit your current diligence workflow. Identify bottlenecks where AI (document categorisation, clause extraction, risk flagging) could compress timelines. This is a competitive advantage in deal speed.

UK Legal Regulatory Focus

Pinsent Masons Refers Itself to SRA Over AI Use in Legal Work

Leading UK law firm Pinsent Masons proactively referred itself to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) after discovering AI had been used in certain client work without explicit disclosure. The firm's transparency action highlights a critical compliance gap: the need for clear governance on when AI is deployed, when it isn't, and for what purpose.

Key Insight:

This isn't about banning AI—it's about transparency and control. You must document which tasks use AI, which don't, and why. Audit your contract workflows now: identify where AI is used (due diligence, clause extraction) vs. where human review remains mandatory (final approval, negotiation strategy). Create a simple AI disclosure matrix and brief your GC by end of June.

This Week's Workshop: Building Legal Agents

Why This Matters

There's been a lot of discussion around the use of agents recently, but very few people show you how they're created, what they do, and how to set them up safely for legal work. In this video, Richard Nicholas sets out how he uses agents and demonstrates creating one from scratch and running it, so you can see the result and the process from start to finish. Watch how to build a working legal agent in under 30 minutes—then join the Agent Builder Sprint to create your own.

Join the Agent Builder Sprint

Next cohort starts 22 June. Three intensive half-day sessions. Learn to build custom AI agents for contract review, M&A due diligence, and commercial workflows. Limited to 20 counsel. All experience levels welcome.

More details here →

Copy-Paste Ready: Prompt for Rapid Contract Analysis

Use this prompt with Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM. Paste a contract, then run this prompt:

You are a contract review specialist supporting in-house counsel. I am pasting a contract below. Please: 1. Identify the top 5 commercial and legal risks (payment terms, termination rights, liability caps, renewal conditions, IP ownership, indemnification). 2. For each risk, explain the impact and suggest a negotiation counter-point or mitigation strategy. 3. Highlight any unusual, non-standard, or missing clauses. 4. Summarise the contract in 3 bullets: (a) What we receive; (b) What we pay; (c) How we exit. 5. Rate overall risk on a scale of 1 (low risk) to 10 (high risk), with justification. 6. List three follow-up questions to ask the counterparty before signing. Assume the reader has 10+ years of legal experience. Be precise and avoid over-explanation. Format your response clearly with headers.

Want More Prompts & Workflows?

For prompts and more detailed workflows like this one, take a look at our book on AI for legal professionals. Explore step-by-step guides, ready-to-use prompts, and best practices for integrating AI safely into your legal work.

Explore the Book →